abnormal sperm?

[LisaV]

does anybody know what could cause dh to have abnormal sperm? i got pg with 2nd IUI (ds is now 2-1/2) and his sperm was fine. this last time they said that he had abnormal sperm, but still did the IUI, which resulted in a bfn. they had no explanation for it and told me not to worry to much about it. i'm not really looking to get another iui done if they are abnormal. i just dont understand why 3ish years ago it was fine and now it is not.

[mlm]

Maybe it can happen with age?? I have no idea but my DH the morph came back abnormal in one washing and fine for the next 10 we did and the one we did for IVF?

[Nechomah]

Lisa, post your question in the Male Infertility section - ask Rich. I'm sure he'll have plenty of advice for you.

Nechomah

[rich]

Dear Lisa,

Sperm can change from normal to abnormal anytime during there 74 day developement because of external changes. This is why no diagnosis is ever done on one sample being bad. On IUI's as long as 1 million good ones are placed the odds of success don't increase even if I put a billion good ones in there. So if your DH shoots 100 million sperm and 99% are bad that leaves 1% good you have success. Abnormal is where any of the parimeters is less than normal i.e. count, morphing, motility etc.. This can be caused by things we don't remember at all or think it wouldn't harm. A co worker gives a Tagament for a sour stomach a couple of weeks ago or working with solvents trying to free something up. It could be antibiotics given 2 months ago for something or getting drunk a week ago and eating a dozen cherry peppers seeds and all. The list is long and wide and is part of living today.

They studied a man with weekly samples for 2 years. He was consistered to be very fertile as the parimeters initially were very high with 200 million total count with excellent morphing and motility. Over the 2 years the count went up and down even dropping below what was considered to be fertile level of 40 million ending up where it started. What this shows is that a man's system is dynamic not static and changing day by day. The sample of today is what is happening 90 days ago and most of us can't remember what happened yesterday much less 3 months ago.

The best advice I can give is get him on a good multivitamin/minerals pill. As for worrying about the sperm don't. Tygerberg in the statistical analysis showed that 1 million good sperm ensures success in 4 IUI's of pregnancy. Adding any amount of good sperm above that didn't improve the chance. This is why IUI's work on low amounts of good sperm.

rich

[LisaV]

thanks rich! he doesnt take ANY vitamins now, so i will have him start!