Life Trauma Affects Men’s Sperm & Potential Future Kids

Living through trauma changes the trajectory of a person’s life forever. Even if there is the ability to heal the inner child mentally and physically with the help of therapy, the fact that trauma has been lived through is not something that ever truly leaves a person. It will shape the way people see the world and how they live their lives because of it. Women are able to choose not to pass along to their children and grandchildren. Men, however, may not have that same opportunity given that life trauma affects men’s sperm and potential future kids.

Be it child abuse, poverty, war, malnourishment, or specific life events that cause trauma in men’s lives, all have the ability to shape the rest of their lives. What is not well known is that these traumatic events can cause future generations to bear the brunt of trauma as well. This is because the sperm of men who experience trauma have epigenetic marks, or chemical modifications, according to the BBC.

And when this happens, these markers become part of future generations’ DNA. Potentially setting them up for health issues peers do not have whose fathers did not face any sort of trauma in life.

RELATED: 15 Signs Of Psychological Trauma In Babies

Here is how life trauma affects men’s sperm and potential future kids.

Offspring Are At Higher Risk For Mental Health Disorders

When trauma is experienced by men, their offspring may face a higher risk for mental health disorders, according to Virtue Baby. Something that may make men take pause before they decide to have children with their partners.

It is believed that mental health disorders are passed down from one generation to the next. But for those who do not suffer from any mental health problems despite not having the best upbringing or having traumatic events in their lives, the reason that mental health problems may crop up in their children or grandchildren has to do with those horrific events that men survived.

Per the publication, chemical markers form on sperm that can change their children’s or children’s DNA to put them at higher risk for developing bipolar disorder. If found to be conclusively true with larger scale studies, it could help unlock why so many more people are facing mental health disorders, despite living happy and trauma-free childhoods.

If men suffered from events in life where they did not know where their next meals were going to come from and going hungry was the norm, this is something that qualifies as a traumatic life event. And when this happens, the markers on their sperm can change the metabolic makeup of future generations.

According to Science, when past generations lived through things like war and famine, they lived shorter lives as a result. Something that is not necessarily surprising. The generations that came after them, however, had their DNA changed as a result of the extreme amounts of cortisol that their fathers or grandfathers experienced. And because of the chemical changes that occurred in the sperm, future generations have been found to have higher rates of heart disease, obesity, or diabetes than those whose families did not have traumatic events to live through.

When a history of trauma is known, it can be beneficial for healthcare professionals to know so that if they begin to see metabolic changes in their patients, they can be addressed immediately. Something that may be able to decrease the high amounts of metabolic diseases seen today.

Sons Appear To Be Affected While Daughters Are Spared

The idea that both sons and daughters of men who experienced trauma were equally affected by the different markers on the sperm does not appear to be the case. Instead, it seems that sons are affected by past trauma in their fathers’ or grandfathers’ lives at a much greater rate than daughters are.

According to the BBC, when sons were born to soldiers before they became prisoners of war, there was not any change in the mortality rate of the sons. They lived just as long as their peers whose fathers were not POWs.

However, when babies were born after men became POWs, the life expectancy of sons decreased. Life expectancy for daughters did not. Meaning that trauma may affect same-sex children more. Leaving sons to face the brunt of the past trauma via their DNA, even if they face no trauma of their own during their lives.

There is still more research to be done on this topic. But for now, it is clear that trauma from past generations does not simply go away. Children and grandchildren may end up paying the price of that trauma if special attention is not paid to changes in mental or physical health as kids age. Specifically in sons. If caught sooner rather than later, it may help to change the trajectory of the trauma and stop it in its tracks.

Source: BBC, Virtue Baby, Science