Sperm bank
[3] A sperm donor must generally meet specific requirements regarding age and screening for medical history.
The first sperm banks began as early as 1964 in Iowa, USA and Tokyo, Japan and were established for a medical therapeutic approach to support individuals who were infertile.
Nevertheless, the increasing range of services available through sperm banks enables people to have choices over challenges with reproduction.
People may choose to use a surrogate to bear their children, using eggs provided by the person and sperm from a donor.
A particular example of this is the control which is often placed on the number of children which a single donor may father and which may be designed to protect against consanguinity.
[10] A donor must be a fit and healthy male, normally between 18 and 45 years of age, and willing to undergo frequent and rigorous testing.
A sperm donor must generally meet specific requirements regarding age and medical history.
The screening procedure generally also includes a quarantine period, in which the samples are frozen and stored for at least six months after which the donor will be re-tested for the STIs.
[13] Children conceived through sperm donation have a birth defect rate of almost a fifth compared with the general population.
A sperm bank may provide a donor with dietary supplements containing herbal or mineral substances such as maca, zinc, vitamin E and arginine which are designed to improve the quality and quantity of the donor's semen,[15] as well as reducing the refractory time[16] (i.e. the time between viable ejaculations).
Modern sperm banks have also been known to screen out potential donors based on genetic conditions and family medical history.
Many of these facilities contain pornography such as videos/DVD, magazines, and/or photographs which may assist the donor in becoming aroused in order to facilitate production of the ejaculate, also known as the "semen sample" but the increasing usage of porn in the U.S. has dulled many men to its effects.
The 'wash' method includes removing unwanted particles and adding buffer solutions to preserve viable sperm.
The 'unwashed' approach allows for more flexibility to freeze the semen sample and increases the number of sperm survival.
Semen extenders play a key factor in protecting sperm sample from 'freeze and osmotic shock, oxidative stress, and cell injury' due to the formation of ice crystal during frozen storage.
The collection of semen is preserved by stabilizing the properties of the sperm cells such as the membrane, motility, and 'DNA integrity' in order to create a sustainable viable environment.
[25] One study compared media supplemented with egg yolk and media supplemented with soy lecithin, finding that there was no significance between sperm motility, morphology, chromatin decondensation, or binding between the two, indicating that soy lecithin may be a viable alternative to egg yolk.
The conventional technique consists of a slow freezing process that is most commonly used for assisted reproduction technologies (ART).
Whereas the vitrification method is a faster approach for sperm cryopreservation in converting liquid to solid state.
The disadvantage of this latter process is increase in contamination from the liquid nitrogen and smaller sperm sample size to improve the speed for 'high cooling rate'.
[30] Once a sperm sample is thawed, it cannot be frozen again, and should be used to artificially inseminate a recipient or used for another assisted reproduction technologies (ART) treatment immediately.
However, DNA can be damaged in this process, therefore further research is warranted to determine factors that can effect the efficacy of this method.
[31] One study conducted by investigators at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill looked into donated sperm utilization within the United States from 1995 to 2017.
[37] Within the United States, there were differences when it came to a child conceived after the father's death and the eligibility for survivor's benefits.
Under California law, there was one court case (Vernoff vs. Astrue) in which the mother's child (conceived after the father's death) was not eligible for the survivor's benefits.
The most common technique is conventional artificial insemination which consists of a catheter to put the sperm into the vagina where it is deposited at the entrance to the cervix.
Information made available by a sperm bank will usually include the race, height, weight, blood group, health and eye color of the donor.
Although the methods used do not guarantee 100% success, the chances of being able to select the gender of a child are held to be considerably increased.
In the European Union a sperm bank must have a license according to the EU Tissue Directive which came into effect on April 7, 2006.
[45] There have been reports of incidents of abuse regarding forced insemination with sperm samples bought online.
