If you have been for a Fertility Assessment at an IVF clinic and been told he has SuperSperm, consider a second opinion! The term ‘SuperSperm’ is the term handed out like smarties by clinics keen to usher you straight in for an IVF cycle rather than draw attention to a potentially fixable male fertility issue.
Let’s look more closely at sperm health.
More often than not, when a couple has been struggling to conceive for a long time, or when IVF has failed to produce a healthy pregnancy, sperm health is involved. Yet women are being left feeling as though it is all about egg quality (that elusive thing that conveniently can’t be measured so you can’t prove anyone wrong!).
She may have had many hormone blood tests, thyroid blood tests, scans, swabs, tube checks etc. He may have had a simple semen analysis – often not even a full diagnostic semen analysis!
Aren’t all semen analysis tests equal?
No. Sometimes an in-house test misses out some of the key parameters that might indicate there may be issues in place that could be having a significant impact on sperm health and male fertility. Often an IVF clinic will only look at what they need to look at from an IVF perspective . . .
This lack of transparency is why I always insist on looking at the semen analysis results.
Carefully.
Because there are often fertility issues on both sides for couples struggling with long term unexplained infertility.
Is a semen analysis the only test needed??
No. A semen analysis is not proof of fertility, a semen analysis is proof that there are living, swimming sperm. Around 20-30% of men with a passable semen analysis will find they are infertile if they were to look more closely. There are many other tests that are part of a thorough male fertility work up.
So what is the point of a semen analysis?
The key purpose is to show that there really are sperm available – around 10% of male infertility is thought to be due to a lack of sperm production. But beyond that, a semen analysis is a really useful tool for a holistic fertility detective such as myself as it gives us an impression of the environment that sperm are living in. There is usually work to do to identify the cause of poor sperm health and improve male fertility and this can negate the need for IVF, or make it more likely to succeed if it is still needed.
Read a longer version of this article in my substack feed: click here