Is your sperm in good shape? Why getting a semen analysis is an important step in your surrogacy journey

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Checking sperm health is one of the first things you do when you are preparing to start your fertility journey through surrogacy. As the Northern & Midlands Centre of Excellence for Surrogacy, Manchester Fertility explains what’s involved in semen analysis and what else we can do to help your surrogacy journey.

A semen analysis involves analysing the sperm in your semen, which is the fluid you ejaculate. The test looks at three main factors – how much sperm you have (sperm count), how well your sperm moves (motility) and the shape of your sperm (morphology).

Preparing for a semen analysis test

We will explain to you what you should and shouldn’t do in the run-up to your test, including abstaining from ejaculation in the days before the test so we get the best sample for an accurate result. A 3 – 5 day abstinence period will standardise the test and optimise your sperm parameters, meaning we can measure them at their peak performance.

Providing your semen sample

You’ll be taken to your own private, comfortably furnished room. All appointments are 30 minutes long, allowing you enough time to feel at ease to produce a sample. However, if you struggle with the pressure of being in a new environment, you can always try again on a different day. We offer a virtual tour of our clinic on our website to help people who may feel more comfortable seeing the facilities before they attend. Once you have produced a sample, it will be passed to the laboratory through a secure hatch into the analysis area, where our highly-trained team will examine it under a microscope

Semen analysis: What we check for

A microscope slide is prepared with a small amount of the sample, the slide is then analysed under a microscope to see how many sperm cells are in the sample and how they move. Your sperm check analyses your general sperm health and includes factors such as:

Sperm shape: We need to check your sperm’s shape (morphology) to ensure it can penetrate an egg and fertilise it. Abnormally shaped sperm may not be able to penetrate the egg. We look at the sperm head, midsection, and tail.

Sperm movement: Otherwise known as sperm motility, we’ll look at how your sperm moves and how many of your sperm are moving with good forward progression. These are the sperm that are most likely to fertilise an egg in natural conception and in some fertility treatments.

Sperm count: Sperm count is the number of sperm in your semen. Every man’s sperm count or concentration is different, and it even varies from sample to sample for each individual. For a normal result, we’d expect to see at least 16 million sperm per millilitre of semen.

Volume: We’ll look at how much semen you produced to check semen volume is within a normal range. If you don’t ejaculate much semen, this may indicate a lower sperm number.

Sperm pH: We’ll check your sperm’s pH level to check if it’s within normal levels, which should be fairly neutral.

Consistency: Semen starts out thick but should become more watery or ‘liquefied’ over time to help sperm move and travel to the egg

What do semen analysis results mean?

After we have completed our analysis, we’ll explain your results in full and what they mean for the next steps in your fertility journey.

It’s normal to have sperm that aren’t shaped properly or don’t move too well, but analysing all these factors will give us a good indication of overall sperm health. Sperm needs to be generally of good quality to be used successfully in fertility treatment.

Therefore, if you are a same-sex male couple going through surrogacy, we advise that, unless there is a reason not to, that both male partners have a semen analysis to determine their sperm health for the following reasons:

Fertilisation: High-quality, normally shaped sperm with good motility are more likely to successfully fertilise the egg during the IVF process.

Embryo Development: Even if fertilisation occurs, embryos derived from poor-quality sperm may have lower developmental potential, leading to lower rates of successful implantation and pregnancy.

Embryo Quality: Sperm quality is one factor contributing to embryo quality. High-quality sperm are more likely to produce embryos of optimal quality.

If the results of a semen analysis reveal a poor sperm health but no severe or underlying fertility issues, you will most likely be advised to make certain lifestyle modifications to help improve your sperm quality before you move on to the next stage in your fertility journey. Depending on the type of surrogacy journey you’re on and where you are in the process of finding an egg donor and surrogate, Manchester Fertility, in conjunction with My Surrogacy Journey, can help you in the following steps towards parenthood.

After your initial investigations, services include:

Semen freezing (to quarantined before use in treatment)
Helping you find and match with an egg donor
Transferring embryos from another clinic
Creating embryos with your egg donor (or female partner)
Embryo transfer with your surrogate
Embryo freezing or freezing your sperm
IUI preparation and treatment for surrogates
Aftercare and midwife support for intended parents and surrogates with positive pregnancy tests
Counselling services to support intended parents and surrogates

If you would like to book to discuss your surrogacy journey with Manchester Fertility and take your first steps with a semen analysis, contact our dedicated Surrogacy Co-ordinator, Olivia, on 0161 300 2737. You can also book a no-obligation 1-2-1 discovery appointment or request a call-back.