Sample timing effect results?

[MrsLE]

Just a quick question....

Does the timing of the sperm sample effect the results?
Help or hurt to provide at the office verses providing at home and bringing it to egg retrieval??

Thanks for your insight :)

[Carole]

Hi Mrs. Le,

The short answer is that your husband's best sample will be the one that is collected on-site because the sperm sample can be processed sooner and can be maintained at warm temperatures, preserving the motility of the sperm at high levels. If ICSI is being performed, preserving highest motility is not essential, even twitching motility will be enough to pick out the living sperm for injection. For insemination via catheter into the uterus (IUI), preservation of motility is most important because the sperm have to swim to the egg. A very small percentage of men refuse to collect at the lab for religious or other personal reasons and they must collect at home. If transit time to the lab is less than one hour, that may be okay. Most labs use the one-hour rule as a guideline. If collection at home is the only way to have sperm for the procedure, lower quality sperm is better than no sperm. One of my earlier blog posts discusses the issue of sperm collection IVF Disasters: No sperm on day of egg retrieval | Fertility Lab Insider (http://fertilitylabinsider.com/2010/06/ivf-disasters-no-sperm-on-day-of-egg-retrieval/) Good Luck. Carole

[MrsLE]

Thank you so much for your great answer. Greatly appreciated.