ArticlePloS one2018
Association between paternal smoking at the time of pregnancy and the semen quality in sons.
Article in PloS one, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 15 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prenatal exposure to parental smoking and infertility in sons and daughters: a cohort study.Human reproduction (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- Article
- The Global Decline in Human Fertility: The Post-Transition Trap Hypothesis.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Beyond Genes: Germline Disruption in the Etiology of Autism Spectrum Disorders.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2022Article
- Decreased sperm counts in Swedish users of oral tobacco.Andrology · 2022Article
- Exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and nicotine, and associations with sperm DNA fragmentation.Andrology · 2022Article
- Heritable hazards of smoking: Applying the "clean sheet" framework to further science and policy.Environmental and molecular mutagenesis · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMaternal smoking during pregnancy has repeatedly been associated with decreased sperm counts in sons. Nevertheless, our team recently detected a lower total sperm count in the sons of smoking fathers as compared to sons of non-smoking fathers. Since paternal and maternal tobacco smoking often coincide, it is difficult to discriminate whether effects are mediated paternally or maternally when using questionnaire- or register-based studies. Therefore, getting an objective measure of the maternal nicotine exposure level during pregnancy might help disentangling the impact of paternally and maternally derived exposure.
objectivesOur aim was to study how paternal smoking at the time of the pregnancy was associated with semen quality in the sons after adjusting for the maternal levels of nicotine exposure during pregnancy.
methodsWe recruited 104 men (17-20 years old) from the general Swedish population. The participants answered a questionnaire about paternal smoking. Associations between smoking and semen volume, total sperm count, sperm concentration, morphology and motility were adjusted for levels of the nicotine metabolite cotinine in stored maternal serum samples obtained from rubella screening between the 6th and 35th week of pregnancy. We additionally adjusted for the estimated socioeconomic status.
resultsAfter adjusting for the maternal cotinine, the men of smoking fathers had 41% lower sperm concentration and 51% lower total sperm count than the men of non-smoking fathers (p = 0.02 and 0.003, respectively). This was robust to the additional adjustment.
conclusionsOur results suggest a negative association between paternal smoking and sperm counts in the sons, independent of the level maternal nicotine exposure during the pregnancy.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.