Alcohol, smoking, caffeine, and drugs all have been found to impact upon cell development and fertility negatively. Alcohol can affect an individual in a variety of ways. Excess of anything is not good and same is the case with alcohol. There are emotional and physical consequences of heavy drinking. It can affect fertility as well.

Alcohol Kill Sperm?

In men, excessive alcohol can cause elevated estrogen and abnormal liver function. This can affect sperm development as well as hormone levels. Alcohol is a toxin that can kill sperm-generating cells in the testes. Moderate drinking as well may cause difficulties in conceiving.

A healthy male produces millions of sperm each day. When alcohol breaks down in the body, it may interfere with normal sperm structure and movement. It is very difficult to say how much alcohol intake is safe or if it is safe at all. Some studies say that 1-2 drinks per day are not going to cause much harm, while other say that alcohol should be avoided under all circumstances especially if a couple is looking forward to having a baby. But it is an apparent fact that alcohol causes at least some harm to the development of sperm. As per the researches, it takes over 30 days for a sperm to reach maturity so every time a man drinks in a 30-day period, he’s exposing the developing sperm that many times to the alcohol.

Intake of alcohol affects female fertility as well. It causes a problem in ovulation, conceiving, etc. It not only increases the risk of miscarriage but also affects the growth of the fetus.  Excessive alcohol is associated with hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian dysfunction, anovulation, luteal phase defect and hyperprolactinemia.

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Now there is one more scenario where the question arises what if a couple has consumed alcohol post unprotected sexual intercourse? Will it kill the sperm? Well, as per the specialists, alcohol would not reach the internal cervix or uterus to kill any sperm which might have managed to reach there. And hence an important point to be noted here is that one should not consider alcohol as any kind of birth control measure because it does not act that way.