Artificial Insemination

I remember when artificial insemination with washed sperm was first shown to improve fertility treatments. I was working at Yale and we were surprised that the research showed it was effective for almost every cause of infertility (except blocked tubes).

Sperm are very different in number and function between men. What many people don’t know is that even in normal men a majority of sperm don’t work! That’s one of the reasons why men have to produce millions of sperm at a time. The other reason is that the path to the egg is very very far. For a tiny sperm, swimming and finding the egg would be like walking to California without a map for you and me.

What we learned was amazing. Doctors can actually separate the good sperm from the bad and give them a jump start to fast straight swimming by a washing procedure in the office. This can be done in many different ways and only the best methods truly separate good from bad. Then with a tiny straw the sperm can be placed half-way to the egg in a painless 5 minute step. Adding this simple step nearly doubled the chances of success for most fertility treatments!