Objective

Most French people think that disabled people do not have any sexual life in terms of pleasure and reproduction. Or sex contributes to a great part of each individual’s well-being and health. In our study, we determined the reproductive sexuality of men with an exclusively traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) treated at the Henry-Gabrielle Hospital in Saint-Genis-Laval from January 2000 to December 2010, who benefited, or not, from a sexological assessment.

Material/patients and methods

This is an observational and retrospective study on the number of births in a cohort of 320 men with SCI, aged from 18 to 45 years at the time of their accident and who have an exclusively traumatic SCI without any evolution. The database has been fulfilled by an analysis of their medical records and a self-administered questionnaire.

Results

In total, 129 men out of the 320 participants who have SCI completed the survey. Forty-eight men out of those 129 became fathers. For those who have an entire SCI, the percent of success to have a child after the accident is 30.8% versus 41,2% for those who have lesions incomplete ( P > 0.05). The average delay between the date of accident and the age of becoming father is 8.6 years. On one hand, men are around 24.3 when their get injured. On the other hand, the middle age to become father for the first time is 34 years old. Among those 48 new fathers, 29% conceived their child without assistance, 69% with medical assisted procreation and the left 2% had to adopt. The total number of birth stands at 77 living babies. Moreover, men who benefited from a sexological assessment have more chance to procreate without medical assistance than men who do not (respectively 12.6% versus 4.4%) ( P < 0.05).

Discussion–conclusion

Men with spinal cord injury with different lesion and completeness are able to conceive children with or without medical assisted procreation. Our study shows that both a sexological assessment and the sperm conservation in a freezer increase the chance of becoming a father for men who have a traumatic spinal cord injury.