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I believe the question to be legitimate, and it is not the purpose
of the medical profession to judge patients who seek advice. If I remember my
biology correctly, it takes several weeks to produce mature sperm, so
theoretically the couple should be in the clear to conceive a child using
healthy sperm. However, I would venture
a guess that the sensitive sperm-producing mechanism might be damaged in some
way by a high radiation dose, perhaps irreparably so. Therefore the sperm
produced could be damaged and lead to the inability to fertilize an egg, or
perhaps produce a defective embryo if fertilization should occur. Someone responded that age of the mother was often
implicated in (chromosome) defects and this is true, there is a statistically
increased risk of having a baby with Down’s or some other chromosome
abnormality after age 35. However, most babies with chromosome abnormalities
are born to younger women simply because this age group has the most babies. I
suppose the theory is that the older you get, the more likely your eggs (ova)
are to be damaged. After all, girls are born with all the ova they will ever
have, they are not created on an ongoing basis as are sperm. I have a 4 month old daughter with a rare chromosome
abnormality who was diagnosed at 25 weeks gestation (I was age 33 when she was
conceived). Unlike Down’s syndrome, which is a trisomy condition (in
which there is an extra 21st chromosome),
my daughter’s syndrome is caused by a deletion of part of one of the 4th
chromosomes. I have learned there are all types of chromosome disorders;
trisomies, monosomies, rings, translocations, etc. I’ve often wondered about the mechanism
for various types of chromosome damage ever since my radiation biology class
several years ago, but living with it on a daily basis is far removed from the
textbooks. And yes, at least one of my relatives has questioned whether my
occupational radiation exposure “caused” my daughter’s
condition (not that my exposure was ever significant!). I suspect the
mechanisms for each of the abnormalities are very different. I would expect
science to answer many of these questions in the next several years. |