At least 30% of couples who need my help, do so because the male partner has a sperm problem. Every infertility docs’ style of practicing medicine is different. Some docs say, the treatment of a male sperm problem is IVF with ICSI. This translates into, if you take the egg and inject the sperm into the egg, you’ve fixed the problem – so why go searching for a cause?
There are 2 reasons why I do my best to find out where the sperm problem is coming from:
1. Depending on the cause, there may be a fix
2. If it is genetic, if the couple I’m taking care of may end up having a boy that does not have any sperm. This is something a couple may want to know ahead of time.
This is what you should know:
1. 7% of men with abnormal sperm counts may have a chromosomal anomaly
2. The recommendation is that men with counts less than 10 million/ml should have a karyotype done (chromosomal analysis).
3. Men with low sperm counts should also be screened for Cystic Fibrosis (associated with absence of the vas deferens) and for Y chromosome microdeletions.
Go into treatment with all the answers.
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