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| Sperm Donation | For couples who are experiencing fertility problems resulting from male infertility, seeking a sperm donor may be an option. Definitely, if your partner is experiencing low sperm count, poor motility or abnormal sperm morphology, sperm donation can help increase your odds of getting pregnant. The fertilized egg will be implanted inside the uterus and ideally result in a pregnancy.
Donor sperm is sperm taken from a healthy male donor, so that it can be frozen and stored in a sperm bank. Later this sperm becomes available to women looking to become pregnant. Once a donor has been selected, his sperm will be used to fertilize the female recipient's egg, normally during artificial insemination or other assisted reproductive technologies (ART), such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF).
Sperm donors are typically anonymous and undergo rigorous screening for medical and genetic diseases and for all sexually transmitted and other infectious diseases, including AIDS and hepatitis. Every donation must be quarantined for six months and the donor re-tested at this time to ensure sample is negative for the viruses that lead to those diseases. The semen regulations also require that if a donated sample has a high white blood cell count, it must be destroyed, as this is often indicative of a viral or bacterial infection.
Now semen donation is controlled activity under the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, and will require licensing once the appropriate regulations have been implemented. To maintain the practice of “anonymous” donation will help the new act, although detailed records will be maintained. Donors could have the option of revealing their identity if they choose.
Sperm donations may be requested to overcome infertility in couples where the man has no sperm production or the sperm count is so low that pregnancy is improbable. Lesbian couples as well as single women also take advantage of donated sperm in order to conceive.
* Who is a Sperm Donation Recommended for?
A fertility consultant will generally recommend sperm donation for couples in which the male partner has:
• Low sperm count or is suffering from azoospermia (no sperm in his semen).
• Genetic defects, such as haemophilia that may be transmitted to the child.
Also this may be a good option for couples in which both partners have normal reproductive organs, but may not be able to have a child because of Rhesus incompatibility, as well as single women or gay couples wishing to have a child.
However, it should be noted, that women how have fertility problems such as ovarian failure, will not be eligible for sperm donation.
* The Requirements for Becoming a Sperm Donor
There are some requirements men must fulfill before becoming eligible sperm donors.
The requirements needed to become a semen donor:
• Age between 18 and 35 years old.
• Being university student or having a normal IC.
• Not suffering (neither the donor nor his closest relatives) major genetic disorders nor hereditary diseases.
• Not suffering diseases of hereditary component such as asthma, diabetes, epilepsy or high blood-pressure. • Being seronegative for viral hepatitis, syphilis, herpes, AIDS and cytomegalovirus.
• Not suffering bacterial infections noticeable in blood and semen cultures.
• Having semen with enough characteristics to survive freezing with guarantees.
• Have a healthy medical history as well as lifestyle.
• Have healthy children.
• Have high sperm count, and excellent sperm motility and morphology.
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