alcohol and fertility!?!?!?

Hello and thanks in advance for your services.  I'm a 24yr otherwise healthy male, and my fiance is a 22yr old healthy female.  My question is can alcohol affect fertility?  I recently was a heavy drinker and party goer, drinking around 8 beers a day and on the weekends more, I know the health affects it has on my body otherwise that is why I dont do this anymore.  Me and my fiance was looking to have a baby and about a week ago, when I was still partying hard, she doesn't drink but MAYBE once a week, and during this particular night she endulged in quite a few, we came home and had unprotected sex in hopes that maybe we could conceive, it was around the 13th-16th day of her cycle.  My question is what are the chances we could concieve (conceive) given my strong previous alcohol use before and that night, and her VERY mild alcohol use before but strong that night?????

[Elaine Brown, MD]

Hi!
Alcohol CAN affect fertility.  But on a more chronic basis.  What I mean is, it takes three months for a male to produce sperm, so the amount of alcohol you were drinking three months ago is what will affect how many sperm you have available today.  As for a woman, rare heavy alcohol use is unlikely to affect her fertility.  All of the eggs that a woman has are packaged in her ovaries when she is born.  Long term heavy alcohol use can affect a woman's fertility by damaging her eggs and by throwing her hormone levels out of balance. This is not likely to happen after one wild evening.
IF you two do plan to have children though, you need to cut down!  That much alcohol over a long term basis is going to take a major toll on your health in more ways than one.
I think the baby would prefer a healthy sober daddy!
Good luck!
Dr B