Chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment, and some medical/surgical procedures can affect fertility, either temporarily or permanently. In conjunction with assisted conception techniques, sperm banking may allow you to achieve a pregnancy should your own sperm count or quality not return to normal after your treatment. Right from the beginning of cytostatics drugs usage or radiotherapy treatment you should avoid pregnancy because of its teratogenic and mutagenic side-effects.

Fertility preservation by banking sperm prior to treatment is now routine practice. This service is well used and generally well tolerated by patients.

Samples from pre-chemotherapy patients are diluted with a special medium which helps protect sperm during the freezing process and kept until the patient decided to have a child.

It is also recommended to bank sperm prior to urological procedures which may affect fertility.

How to freeze sperm?

The Maternity Clinic offers sperm banking for male patients who are going to undergo treatment of malignancies or urological procedures and also for IVF and IUI patients who can’t be present during procedure or have difficulties with ejaculation.

If you wish to have sperm frozen and stored at Bourn Hall, you are required to have some blood screening tests carried out before attending the Clinic. We require current negative virus and bacterial screening test before any sperm can be frozen and put into storage at Maternity Clinic. You could have the screening tests carried out at Maternity Clinic when you attend for your consultation, but in this case we will not be able to freeze sperm for you on that day.

Your semen sample will be diluted with a special medium which helps protect sperm during the freezing process. The semen sample will be stored in 0.5ml plastic ampoules. These are marked with your unique medical number as well as your name and the date of freezing. Commonly ampoules are suspended in liquid nitrogen vapors, unfortunately it is an uncontrolled process and often causes sperm damage. At Maternity Clinic we use special freezing equipment (Ice Cube) witch allows computer controlled freezing.

Sperm motility becomes reduced during the freezing process and the thawed sample will always be of poorer quality, which may affect your chances of achieving a pregnancy in the future. In some cases, there may be no sperm survival on thawing. Patient receives freezing protocol after the procedure. Your straws are then allocated a space in our freezer (cryo-refrigerator) where they will remain in storage at -196ºC until required or we are instructed to dispose of them

Usage of the frozen sperm?

Frozen sperm, depending on parameters, may be used for intrauretine insemination (IUI) or In Vitro Fertilization (IVF, ICSI).