A medical expert is warning that most couples may have to use assisted reproduction to have children by 2045.
Shanna Swan, a professor of environmental medicine and public health, has spent the last few decades studying the impact of hormone-disrupting chemicals on our reproductive systems.
In an interview with the Guardian, Swan explained that our society's consistent decline in reproductivity is linked to our environment, adding that chemicals "play a major causal role".
The medical professor explained:
"It is serious. If you follow the curve from the 2017 sperm-decline meta-analysis, it predicts that by 2045 we will have a median sperm count of zero. It is speculative to extrapolate, but there is also no evidence that it is tapering off. This means that most couples may have to use assisted reproduction."
While delayed childbearing and lifestyle also have an effect on our fertility, they are certainly not the only factors, according to Swan.
She said: "When a colleague and I looked at the change in impaired fecundity [the ability to have children] we were surprised to see younger women had experienced a bigger increase than older age groups.
"This suggests that something besides aging and delayed childbearing is affecting fertility. Moreover, there’s compelling evidence that the risk of miscarriage has been rising among women of all ages."
Swan went on to say that the chemicals that are harming our reproductive health are those that interfere with or imitate our body's primary sex hormones including testosterone and estrogen.
She added that these chemicals can give our bodies the impression that they have enough of a particular hormone and that they do not need to produce more of them. In turn, reproduction goes down.
Phthalates, which are typically used to make plastic soft and flexible, are the most concerning of such chemicals.
Swan goes on to say that phthalates are in everybody and that our main exposure to them stems from the food we eat as plastic is used in food production, processing and packaging.
Previously, the professor warned that the average sperm counts among men in the Western world has more than halved in the last four decades.
You can find out more about Swan's research on the matter in her book, Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race.
