Many men now around the world endures the
frustrating experience of a decrease in
their ability to experience full
erections, suffer from premature
ejaculation, or weak ejaculation with
ineffective orgasms. All of these sexual
disorders can prohibit from having a low
sperm count and decrease of sperm
activity.
How Does a Man Find Out If He is
Infertile?
Approximately 80% of couples seeking an
infertility evaluation will get an answer
as to why they can't get pregnant or
achieve a successful pregnancy. In about
50% of those cases, the problem involves
the man. Sperm problems may be the sole
cause of a couple's infertility problem or
may add to existing infertility problems
of the female partner. This is why it's
always important to evaluate both the man
and the woman from the very start of any
infertility workup.
When evaluating a man for male factor
infertility, semen analysis is done to
look for problems with his sperm. These
problems may include a low total sperm
count. You may also hear terms such as
morphology (the shape or size of sperm),
motility (the movement of sperm) and
agglutination (the clumping of sperm).
To achieve its goal, sperm must have three
things going for it: quantity, quality and
motility.
Quantity. You're most likely to be fertile
if you have more than 20 million sperm per
milliliter of semen. However, researchers
are finding that having healthy sperm (the
quality) may be just as important as the
total amount of sperm you produce. Of the
millions of sperm in the ejaculated semen,
only about 200 actually reach the egg in a
woman's fallopian tube. But, just one is
needed to fertilize the egg.
Quality. It's not enough just to have
enough. Sperm shape and structure
(morphology) are equally important. Youare
most likely to be fertile if more than one
third of your sperm are of normal shape
and structure. A normal sperm has an oval
head and a long tail that propel it
forward. Sperm with large, small, tapered
or crooked heads or kinky, curled or
double tails are less likely to fertilize
an egg.
Motility. To reach the target, your sperm
have to move.Riding the semen wave will
only take the sperm so far. To reach the
egg, sperm have to move on their own
wriggling and swimming the last few inches
to reach and penetrate the egg. Sperm
movement (motility) is an important
characteristic of healthy sperm. You're
most likely to be fertile if at least half
of your sperm are moving.
