Male Factor Fertility & Sperm

***VIDEO***

Now let’s take a look at male fertility. For fertilisation to take place, the right amount of sperm has to actually reach the fallopian tube and meet the egg. There are a number of reasons why this might not happen. For example, for a man to put sperm in the correct place, there needs to be ejaculation following erection and successful penetrative intercourse.

Now, if these three factors don’t work well, sperm will never reach the egg, and an egg that’s been released will not fertilise.

Male Hormonal Control

For a man to produce sperm, the testes under the control of hormones from the brain will release sperm through ejaculation following erection and through successful penetrative intercourse, sperm will reach the fallopian tubes. But there are a number of points at which there could be a problem with this process.

Male factor fertility is so important and crucial to successful fertilization. Sometimes the hormones from the brain itself are not working to actually tell the testes to produce sperm. Sometimes there can be a blockage between the testes and successful ejaculation of sperm, and occasionally the testicles themselves are not working.

So how do you know if you’ve got a problem with this feedback loop at any point? Let’s have a little look in a bit more detail.

What makes sperm optimal?

So what makes good sperm parameters? It takes many weeks to make a mature sperm. The sperm cells start in the testes as immature sperm cells. Over a period of almost three months, the sperm will grow, develop, and mature.

When a man does a sperm sample for us to look at in the clinic, we are looking at many parameters.

What makes normal sperm successful is good concentration of well-developed mature sperm that’s swimming well and of normal shapes and patterns. So there are a number of parameters that we look at when looking at sperm.