The fertility facts that get lost in the noise.

Hi friends,

There’s no shortage of fertility information out there. The problem is that most of it is noise. Confident-sounding advice recycled from outdated data, half-remembered studies, or someone’s cousin’s experience presented as universal truth. This week, we cut through it. One piece goes deep on something most people have never thought about: what your laptop might actually be doing to sperm health. The other takes on seven of the most persistent fertility myths and checks each one against the current medical evidence. Different angles, same goal: replacing the noise with something you can actually use.

Let’s get into it.

Seven things everyone “knows” about getting pregnant, and what the evidence actually says. Does your fertility really fall off a cliff at 35? Does birth control damage your chances? Should you “just relax”? We took seven of the most persistent fertility myths and ran them against the current medical literature. Some are partly true, some are fully wrong, and a few are more nuanced than anyone on TikTok wants to admit.

👉 Read: The Fertility Myths Costing You Time (And Sanity)

This week’s articles are all about the gap between what people believe about fertility and what the science actually supports. That gap isn’t accidental, it’s fed by social media algorithms, outdated data that never got corrected, and a research landscape that’s evolving faster than the headlines can keep up with. Here are some recent pieces that dig deeper into the themes we covered this week:

TikTok’s Fertility Problem: How Misinformation Shapes the TTC Conversation A Maven Clinic survey found that over half of people trying to conceive have encountered fertility misinformation on social media, and nearly 1 in 10 tried an online “fertility hack” that negatively affected their health. Meanwhile, a 2025 study in JMIR found that 57% of top TikTok fertility videos promoted strategies with no scientific evidence base. READ ARTICLE

Is Male Fertility Really in Crisis? The Science Is More Complicated Than the Headlines Sperm counts have dropped roughly 50% since the 1970s, according to widely cited meta-analyses. But a 2025 Cleveland Clinic review found counts are largely stable in men without known fertility issues, calling for “no cause for panic.” The truth, as usual, is somewhere in between, and National Geographic explores what we do and don’t know. READ ARTICLE

Is Male Infertility Contributing to Falling Birth Rates? Undark Magazine examines the growing body of evidence linking environmental chemicals and lifestyle changes to declining male fertility, and asks whether the conversation about falling birth rates has been too focused on women’s choices and not enough on men’s biology. READ ARTICLE

The heat, the Wi-Fi, the hours on the couch — what the research actually says about laptops and male fertility.You probably already know that heat isn’t great for sperm. But the research on laptop use specifically goes further than most people realize — and it’s not just about temperature. We dug into the peer-reviewed studies on scrotal hyperthermia, electromagnetic field exposure, and what the urology world is actually recommending. Some of it will change how you sit on the couch tonight.

👉 Read: Your Laptop May be Killing Your Sperm

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