Contrary to popular belief, early research suggests that sperm donations from men in their 40s could be more likely to produce a successful pregnancy.
Women’s fertility starts to decline by the time they hit their mid-thirties, and previous studieshad suggested that sperm quality in men over the age of 35 declines, which may also impact their fertility.
A new study conducted at the Newcastle Fertility Centre at Life in the UK used sperm donations to assess sperm quality and showed that men over the age of 35 do not produce sperm of a lesser quality—in fact, sperm from men in their 40s had a better chance of resulting in successful pregnancy. The researchers are very careful in pointing out this is early reasearch, and the trend could be explained by the fact younger men who donate sperm may have not know if they are fertile or not.
Scientists analysed more than 230,000 sperm donations registered by the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority in the UK between 1991 and 2012. The sperm was used for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) or donor insemination.
The female subjects were divided into two groups. The first group had women at the peak of their fertility—between 18 and 34 years of age—and the other had women treated after the age of 37, when their fertility has started to decline. The sperm donors were divided into six age groups: under 20, 21 to 25, 26 to 30, 31 to 35, 36 to 40, and 41 to 45.
Not surprisingly, age had an impact on the female groups. Women aged 18 to 34 had a 29% live birth rate from IVF with donated sperm, but the plus-37-years-of-age group had a 14% success rate.
However, the age of the sperm donor didn’t have a negative impact in the results. In fact, women in the younger IVF group who used sperm from a donor aged 41 to 45 had a 30.4% live birth rate, while women who used sperm from donors under 20 had a 28.3% live birth rate. The same trend was seen in the 37-plus group.
"Despite these trends," said reproductive endocrinologist Dr Meenakshi Choudhary in arelease, "it's important to note that the impact of sperm donor age on live birth failed to reach statistical significance in any of the age groups we studied. Indeed, this trend of less likelihood of live birth with younger sperm donor age might simply be explained by the fact that younger men who donate sperm are less likely to have proven fertility themselves than older sperm donors with proven fertility."
The results of the study, the first to conduct an analysis of the effect of sperm donor age on live birth using a large national database, were revealed in the Annual Meeting of ESHRE in Munich, Germany.
No comments:
Post a Comment