“Normal” sperm results
are not the same as optimal.

Depends what you want that word to mean. Normal means his numbers sit above the lowest 5% of men whose partners had already conceived within a year. It is the floor of the room, not a target, and the World Health Organisation say in their own manual that the figure is not meant to separate fertile men from infertile ones. So if you have been trying a long time and the only thing standing between you and an answer is that one word, yes, it is worth a second look.

Count, motility, morphology, pH and round cells, read against optimal ranges for fertility rather than against the lower reference limit. Some of those you will have skimmed past on the page. Some you will not have noticed were there. We go through each one and tell you what it means, which is usually the first time anyone has read that report out loud.

No. We review the one you already have, or tell you how and where to get one and what to ask for. Anything you send us needs to be dated within the last 12 weeks, because sperm made 6 months ago is not the sperm you have now.

A standard semen analysis looks at the outside of the sperm: how many, how they swim, what shape they are. DNA fragmentation looks at what is inside, which is the genetic material making up half the blueprint for your baby. A sperm can look completely fine from the outside and still carry damage that no microscope reading its outline would pick up. In our view it should be a baseline test. It is not routinely offered on the NHS. There are also different types of DNA fragmentation test, and which one matters, so it is exactly the kind of thing we help you navigate inside a Both on Board session, should we feel it is necessary for you.

We are not going to tell you that, because it cannot be predicted, and anyone who quotes you a number should be asked for the evidence. What we can tell you is what this actually is: someone reading his results properly, looking at his bloods, and going through the things across a 90 day window that are genuinely in his hands. That is not a promise. It is considerably more than 1 test and 1 word.

Because sperm takes roughly 70 to 90 days to be made, which means the sample he gave in March is a report on January. The flu, the work trip, the fortnight of no sleep. It also means that in 3 months it is an entirely different set of sperm. This is the one part of the whole process where you can do the 12 weeks and then look again, because you can retest sperm. You cannot retest an egg.