Will it make a difference which sperm bank I choose?
Yes, the bank you choose can make a huge difference in your sperm bank experience!
While many prospective parents will spend hours or even days and weeks
searching sperm donor profiles
full of descriptive information in their search for the right donor, very few of them will spend the same amount of
time and energy to find the right sperm bank. Regardless of the regulations in the industry, not all sperm banks
provide the same services and choosing the best sperm bank for you can make this important process much easier and more successful.
It is not recommend that you find a sperm donor based on the donor’s profile or photographs alone without first learning about the
sperm bank to determine if it suits your individual needs. A large number of the determining factors for finding a sperm bank for
you are very technical and can be confusing for the average person. It is suggested that a patient ask their doctor or possibly
their fertility specialist which sperm bank they deal with or recommend to their clients. If you plan on using a certain doctor
for the procedure, then you really should consider asking if they have a preference what sperm bank you should use and why.
Here are some common factors everyone should consider when selecting a sperm bank clinic for a sperm donation.
Has the sperm bank been certified?
Sperm banks in the United States should be certified by either the American Association of Tissue Banks
(AATB) or their
respective State Health Agencies under the
Clinical Laboratories Improvement Amendment
(CLIA). Tissue banks certified by the AATB must pass more stringent requirements than those that are only CLIA certified. The better sperm banks in America are AATB and CLIA certified and the very best are also ISO 9001:2000 compliant. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) publishes a well respected set of guidelines that most sperm banks in the U.S. will follow. You should always ask a sperm bank what accreditations they have before you begin selecting donors.
What types of screening does the sperm bank perform?
Probably the most important step any sperm bank during the sperm donation process is to screen semen donors and the
semen donation in order to lessen the potential risk from harmful diseases or genetic disorders. Sperm banks will also
measure the collected sperm’s motility, or its ability to move about independently, to insure the health and viability of
the semen sample. There are many questions to ask a sperm bank but here are a few pertaining to screening:
- Are physical exams that include blood testing given to each sperm donor?
- How many generations does a sperm bank go back into a donor’s family medical history?
- Is each sperm donor personally interviewed by the sperm bank’s trained staff?
- Does the sperm bank perform chromosomal analysis or genetic screening?
Here is a donor sperm screening guide example with details on what steps a sperm bank should take to screen sperm donations.
Is the medical history of a donor tracked by the sperm bank?
Having a sperm donor’s medical history tracked is important when you consider that your donor may develop some genetic
disease after you have already had a child using his donated sperm. There is an obvious risk that your child could develop
the same disease later on in life and having this information would allow you to take preventive action to protect your child
which in select cases can make a real difference. It is important to ask a semen bank that you are considering if they track
the medical history of every donor and whether or not they intend to notify you or your healthcare provider of any problems or
issues that may arise in the future.
Are donor pregnancies tracked or limited by the sperm bank?
Tracking the pregnancies from each donor is considered important for two main reasons.
The first reason is of course to know whether or not the donors sperm is viable or capable of
fertilizing a human egg. The second reason and more important reason for monitoring these pregnancies
is to know how many pregnancies a donor has had so they can limit the number of children from any one
donor and therefore lessen the chances of any widespread problems should any issues such as an undetected
genetic disease are discovered after a child is born. There is currently no law that limits the number of
pregnancies allowed from any one semen donor, but most medical professionals will agree that the number should
be kept low so as to avoid complications among other offspring conceived by the same donor. Many sperm banks
will follow their own set of guidelines to limit the number of pregnancies from one of their donors. The ASRM
recommends limiting the number of pregnancies for each donor to 40. It is unfortunate that tracking pregnancies
from sperm donors is difficult sometimes because women are often so busy with being pregnant and then parents to
their newborn child that many of them neglect to report the successful pregnancy.
Will the sperm bank perform a freeze test and ship sperm in nitrogen?
Some donor semen handles the freezing process better than others will. Every sperm bank should perform a freeze test to determine how well the semen freezes and thaws. Sperm donations can only be preserved for long periods of time by storing them in subfreezing temperatures (-196 F) but care must be taken to freeze sperm gradually in order to avoid “freezer burn” of your donor semen. The better choice for shipping or transporting human semen is in a dry nitrogen vapor dewar. A dewar looks much like a thermos that has been charged with liquid nitrogen in order to maintain the freezing temperatures during transport or delivery of the sperm donation. Human sperm should remain viable in this nitrogen tank for as many as seven days or sometimes longer if the dewar has been completely charged. Some semen banks will suggest dry ice as a more affordable shipping option but most fertility professionals do not recommend its use and prefer the nitrogen dewar system.
What type of cryoprotectant does the bank use durig the freezing process?
Sperm banks must use a cryoprotectant in order to improve the freezability of the semen sample and to aid in the sperm freezing process. Certain cryoprotectants have been known to cause an allergic reaction which in some cases can be considered serious. One example of cryoprotectant allergies would be egg yolks which have been proven to cause complications of allergic reactions in certain cases where glycerin is considered a safer choice by most medical professionals. You should ask your practitioner to suggest which procedures he or she feels more comfortable with.
How many years has the sperm bank been in operation?
Human tissue preservation and semen donations have been around for over 30 years now and one must think that the longer a
sperm bank has been in operation then the more experience with customers and customer service they are likely to have.
Established sperm banks generally meet the more stringent requirements of the AATB as well as CLIA and have been around
long enough to feel safe with. This is not to mean that newer sperm bank clinics offer inferior service it just means
that with age comes experience.
What is the sperm banks reputation and history of customer service like?
We live in the information age and it’s become almost too easy to research companies like sperm banks online and to
investigate how they conduct their business or what their reputation is. From simple web searches for the sperm banks
company name to corporate filings, business reports and even the BBB there are numerous
tools available online for researching sperm banks. Careful consideration of each of these points while
looking for sperm banks will help you find the right bank for you. The best sperm bank is one that offers the specific
services necessary for your individual needs. Selecting the best fitting sperm bank for you will help a difficult process
go easier for you and your hopeful child.
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