SWIM UP in IVF for SPerm Preparation

[bows&ribbons]

Hi Carole,
When i looked at my embryology report from my last cycle i noticed that the sperm preparation that they used was "swim up." We did not use ICSI bc didnt need it and DH's sperm fertilized all of my embryos. I ended up though with like 90% males. (7 of 9 biopsied on day 6 were male, 4 out of the 5 normal were male). Is there another way to separate the sperm? Isn't "swim up" the method they use for ericsson -- if so wouldnt that lead to a greater proportion of male sperm when doing iVF?
ANy thoughts would be greatly appreciated!!!!
thanks!!!

[nuthinbutpink]

bumping

[Flava]

Just my luck lol I did a IG home 'swim up' for a boy and got a girl.I can't help but wonder maybe I really only can get girl lol.

[Carole]

A "swim up" prep is not the same thing as the Ericsson method. For a swim-up, we wash the sperm to remove all the ejaculatory fluid. Washing is accomplished by centrifuging the sample so it pellets at the bottom and then resuspending the pellet with a buffered medium. For a swim up, you carefully OVER-layer the sperm with a column of media and leave the sperm undisturbed. The most lively sperm will swim fastest and moved farthest away from the sperm concentrated at the bottom. If you then remove and save the fluid from the top, you have collected the fastest swimmers. For ICSI, it's just a way to try to exert some "natural selection" because otherwise you are just picking a sperm that you can catch that fits in the pipette. The Ericsson method, as I understand it, layers sperm on top of a layer of albumin (egg white protein) and again challenges sperm to swim away from the group, this time down to the bottom. Either way, you'll get faster swimming sperm, not necessarily y enriched sperm. Sorry, but the only way to be sure that you have a girl or a boy is to test the embryos and put only male or female embryos back. Sperm selection just doesn't enrich enough to change sex ratios that much. Hope this helps. Carole

[atomic sagebrush]

Pardon my intrusion but I wanted to point out that Ericcson himself admits that his method yields 50-50 X and Y sperm but claims that his method works anyway because the sperm in question then goes onto conceive different than expected gender of living babies. Ericsson Albumin Method: Sperm Spinning for Gender Selection

Regardless of whether your clinic used swim up. swim down, or swim sideways the ratio of sperm was 50-50.

[bows&ribbons]

Carole - but that is my question. If i am NOT using ICSI, would that method lead to a greater proportion of Y sperm. Do Y sperm really swim faster than X sperm as some people have touted? Thanks!!!

[littlemissnaughty7]

[QUOTE=Flava;139985]Just my luck lol I did a IG home 'swim up' for a boy and got a girl.I can't help but wonder maybe I really only can get girl lol.[/QUO

do you mean modified swim up ? swim up is posted on the IG EGS for ttc a girl, you balance an equal portion of egg white on the sperm sample in a test tube and supposedly the Y sperm will swim up through the eggwhite as the eggwhite is a ph of 9-9.9 which is what Y sperm are attracted too,

[Carole]

Carole - but that is my question. If i am NOT using ICSI, would that method lead to a greater proportion of Y sperm. Do Y sperm really swim faster than X sperm as some people have touted? Thanks!!!

There is no validity to methods which rely on the tiny "weight" difference between XX and XY sperm to select "slower" or "faster" swimming sperm. If you look at a field of motile sperm, you will see sperm at a variety of speeds--there are at least 4 levels of speed that can be scored for sperm, not just slow (supposedly X) or fast (supposedly Y) so obviously there are many other factors in determining sperm speed that have nothing to do with X or Y, so ANY method relying on speed differences to detect presence of absence of Y has to be bogus, period. Carole

[littlemissnaughty7]

i found a ink on here somewhere im not sure if it was AS who posted (i cant remember) and it showed that many female offspring were born to people who tried swim up,

[Carole]

I am not aware of any research which shows that y sperm are preferentially attracted to either albumin or basic pH. In fact, albumin and serum proteins are added to medium containing sperm to make sperm less sticky on the container that they are in (pipettes, tissue culture dishes etc). There are only two methods to determine gender that have any scientific basis. Laser sorting of fluorescent tagged (x or Y) sperm and biopsy and testing of pre-implantation embryos to determine XX or XY status. A pH of 9-9.9 is incredibly basic- normal pH for sperm is between 7.2-7.8. pH outside this range can be harmful to sperm so i would be leery of any treatment that exposes sperm to these non-physiological PH conditions.