I was wondering what the expiration date on frozen sperm is. How long does it remain usable?
Let’s say a hypothetical 18 year old who wants sex but doesn’t want babies for about 10 more years were to have his sperm frozen and then have a vasectomy. How well would that work out, or would it work at all? How much would it cost to store it? I presume that to produce a child from the thawed out sperm, in vitro fertilization would be a requirement. How much would that set me, errr… my friend back?
More than 10 years apparently .
Interesting… so there’s no “expiration date”?
(I used to work in a fertility lab)
Pregnancies have occured using sperm that was frozen >20 years prior. I’ve heard (but doubt) the “record” is 47 years. No cite, sorry, but like I said, I doubt it. The thing that makes me wonder is who wanted to use 47 year old frozen sperm.
It is common for males undergoing chemo, etc, to freeze sperm. We had patients as young as 12 or so with testicular cancer whose parents and oncologists had them bank sperm. However, you’re going to have a hard time finding a physician that’s going to order the cryobanking and perform a vasectomy on an 18 year old childless healthy male who wants children in the future. (Labs can not bank sperm without a physicians order.)
That said -
Rough estimates on cost (YMMV, and keep in mind the cost is going to increase over time.)
I have no idea how much the vasectomy costs, but it’s not commonly covered by insurance.
Initial cryopreservation, setup, administrative costs, etc - about $500, plus $50 - $100 for each additional sample (you’re going to need about 20)
$250 - $500 a year to preserve samples.
(Again, not generally covered by insurance)
Now, say, 15 years from now, you want to use the sperm.
it’s around $500 to thaw and inseminate your wife with the sperm. Each try. Average number of tries to create pregancy is (IIRC) 3.
One last thing - IVF and artificial insemination aren’t the same thing. IVF is invasive to the female, removing the egg and ferilizing, then transplanting the blastocyst back into the female. What I described above is artificial insemination. IVF costs $20,000.00+, is horribly painful, emotionally traumatic, and is the next step if pregnancy doesn’t occur via AI, and you still want to have children that are biologically yours.
Thanks for the info. It appears to be prohibitively expensive for now… not to mention the difficulty finding a doctor who would perform the procedure on a childless 18 year old. Definitely something to consider for the future though.
Is it true the coolest dudes and dudettes are bred from frozen sperm?
And here I was thinking you were talking about a quiesently frozen confection.