Bs1234 Jessica Simpson

Let me state at the outset that I will be discrete here. But before you read further, understand that we're going to be talking about the male reproductive process -- or maybe in this case, the non-reproductive process.

A friend of mine swears he and his wife conceived their second child one evening in their hot tub. Sure, it sounds brutal sexy and romantic, but if you are a regular hot tub enthusiast there are forces at work against conception when you give baby-making a try.

A recent pilot study from the University of California at San Francisco has suggested that there is a decrease in fertility for men who soak in the warm water of a hot tub. It doesn't take that much time either. The researchers studied men who used the hot tub only 30 minutes per week for the three months before they participated in the study. Warm water was defined as anything above body temperature.

A man's testicles are outside the body for a reason -- they need to be cooler then the normal body temperature to produce healthy sperm. Plop those things into a spa filled with 104 degree water and you're going counter to nature. A mature sperm cell can take several months to develop. A healthy man will make about 1,200 sperm with every heart beat and it's those immature sperm that are most at risk from high temperatures. Should you and the little lady be trying to create a tax deduction before the end of the year the hot tub that seems so inviting in January can have an effect on your sperm count when you start on that project in March.

The study is far from conclusive. There were only 11 men who participated in the research, but after stopping their hot tub soaks for a minimum of three months, five of them experienced a significant increase in sperm motility. Of the men who did not improve, heavy tobacco use was a common factor.

Paul J. Turek, MD, was the investigator who led the team in the research and he pointed to hot tub use as a controllable lifestyle factor that a couple could add to the list of things to avoid when trying to conceive a baby. And we might also observe, stopping that cigarette smoking might help, too.

There are other strange and bizarre hot tub uses. On the other end of the gestation period are women who give birth in a hot tub. My friend who successfully conceived in his spa wasn't quite ready for that. He insisted on the hospital.

Rodney Wallin writes on a wide variety of subjects and has enjoyed hot tubs for over 20 years. For lots of additional information on hot tubs and on choosing the right hot tub cover, head over to his website at www.spa-hot-tub-covers.com.

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