For Him ...Body & Health ...Sperm

A lot has been written about sperm, but do you really know all of the facts?

It is thought that sperm was first discovered by a student of Antonij van Leeuwenhoek in 1677 in the city of Delft. One day he brought to the acknowledged master of microscopy, Leeuwenhoek, a bottle containing semen and pointed out that small animals could be seen moving about in the ejaculate.

He described his findings to the Royal Society in London "I have seen so excessively great a quantity of living animalcules that I am much astonished by it. I can say without exaggeration that in a bit of matter no longer than a grain of sand more than fifty thousand animalcules were present, whose shape I can compare with nought better than with our river eel. These animalcules move about with uncommon vigour and in some places clustered so thickly together that they formed a single dark mass. After a short time they separated. In fine, these animals astonished my eye more than aught I had seen before. " (From The Illustrated Book of Sexual Records.© 1974, 1982, 1997-2001 G.L. Simons. www.lovenet.co.uk)

It wasn't until much later it was realised that these little things were used for fertilisation.

So how does it all start?

At puberty your reproductive organs start to become active, under the influence of hormones you begin to produce sperm and testosterone.

The sperm is the smallest cell in the body, whilst the egg is the largest, it is estimated that it will take 175,000 sperm to weigh as much as a female egg, which is a lot of sperm!

Each of your sperm takes a long journey to maturity, spending 64 days growing into sperm, after which they move into the epidiymis (a 20 foot long series of thin coiled tubes) for another 12 days, where they gather together, learn to swim and mature. They are then ready for their next challenge to beat the others in the race for the egg.

Like every cell in our body sperm need a balanced diet to give them energy and to help them on their way. Sperm is made up of sugar, protein, Vitamin C, zinc and prostaglandins, all of which help the fuel sperm on his journey.

And as long as you remain healthy you will continue to produce thousands of sperm every minute, with about 3 million at the tip of your penis every time you get an erection, (enough to populate an entire small country and all fitting onto a teaspoon!) all waiting to break free. As they break free they will do so at an average of 28 miles per hour, obviously observing the urban speed limit.

Sperm only makes up about 5% of what you actually ejaculate, the other alkaline substances, some of which will help protect the sperm from hazards as they swim through the females acid vagina make up the rest.

After approximately 90 seconds the sperm reaches the cervix. Its journey which can take from anything from 5 minutes to 1 hour continues up through the womb, (and) into the fallopian tubes and on towards the egg, which all sounds a little tiring.(All facts and figures supplied by Helen Knox from SEXplained 2… For Young People ISBN 0952622416 - www.sexplained.com)

Which brings to mind a great joke "Why does it take 100 million sperm to fertilise one egg? Because not one will stop and ask for directions"

Sperm survival will depend upon the state of the cervical fluid and how close a woman is to ovulation. Sperm can live up to approximately 5 days in fertile cervical fluid. So even if you haven't had penetrative intercourse you can still get her pregnant.

So with all of this furious activity going on why is it that some couples find it so hard to get pregnant?

For the most part it will simply be a matter of timing. If the woman gets to know her cycle, they will know when to time intercourse. Unlike men who are generally fertile 365 days of the year there is only a small window of fertility each cycle for a woman.

Both quantity and quality of the sperm are important determinants of fertility. A man is considered clinically infertile if his sperm concentration falls below 20 million/ml semen. This cut-off level was chosen because it is recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as the cut-off level to determine a man's fertility status.

The waiting period

Doctors generally wont see you unless you have been trying for a year. The reasons for this are that research shows that:-
· only 25% of couples will conceive in the first month of trying
· 60% will take six months
· and 80% will have conceived within 12 months of trying for a pregnancy
· Doctors classify the 20% that have not conceived within 12 months as infertile.

Availability of home tests

The drive for a child of your own is overwhelming, and will for some mean huge personal sacrifices. Luckily there are some things that couples can do, and testing at home is now available, and is especially valuable in the field of fertility because it is so discreet and private. Home tests are designed to either fast track a couple to pregnancy or medical help.

For the Man

The BabyStart Male Fertility Test which forms part of the BabyStart kit, tests for analysis of sperm concentration to aid in the determination of male infertility. The test is designed to identify whether the sperm concentration in a fresh semen sample is above or below a cut-off of 20 million/ml. This cut-off level was chosen because it is recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as the cut-off level to determine a man's fertility status.

These results show that the test kit is excellent at identifying men with sperm concentration above or below 20 million/ml. Furthermore the test kit is manufactured in the USA in accordance with the Current Good Manufacturing Requirements of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It is the ONLY FDA approved home sperm test.