Choosing the right sperm donor is important. This area is for those who want to learn more about sperm donors, the process of choosing donor sperm and similar information.
Sperm Banks offer a variety of information about the donors you see in their catalogue. From life and medical history and various personality-revealing reports to audio interviews and baby photos, sperm banks try to give you as much knowledge as possible about their donors.
Here is the general information most larger sperm banks offer. Keep in mind that various banks also have their own special features; for example, California Cryobank's Donor-Look-a-Likes feature, where you can see the celebrities your donor might resemble, or Faifax's Donor Silhouettes.
Donor Profile
A quick run-down of a donor's main characteristics, like hair color, eye color, height, weight, degree (if bank lists it), education, blood type, ethnic origin, whether he has ICI, IUI or IVF-ready vials available, ancestry and more.
Long Donor Profiles, Extended Donor Profiles, Medical History Profiles
Sperm banks may differ in how they name these reports, but they are essentially longer donor profiles that often contain all the general information in a donor profile, plus a three-generation medical and genetic history, notes about what they study, their religious affiliations and more.
Audio Interviews With Donors
A number of sperm banks offer audio interviews with donors so you can get a sense of who they are. Most of the time they are fairly simple, allowing you to hear a donor's voice as he responds to specific questions.
Baby or Childhood Photos
A number of sperm banks offer baby photos in lieu of adult photos for their anonymous donors. Because of legal issues, sperm banks aren't allowed to show the adult photos of their anonymous donors, but they may use baby photos. Photos of donors may range in age from 6 months and 6+ years. Since baby photos are offered by the donors, they will range in quality.
Personality Tests
Another donor information product a sperm bank may offer is a personality test. This test may be used as tools to assist with donor selection or may provide an interesting insight into your own child's temperament some day.
Staff Impressions
These are reports written by employees who have worked directly with donors. They may be free and contain employees' observations and opinions on the donor.
Donor Essays
Donor essays are written by donors. They are usually in a question-answer format, e.g. what is your favorite color, what's your ultimate goal in life, why do you want to be a donor.
Facial Features Reports
These reports provide information about a donor's particular facial features to assist in the donor
selection process, e.g. eye shape, how they're set in the face, skin color, skin tone, face shape and much more.
Donor Matching or Photo Matching Consultations
If an individual wants to find a donor that resembles them, a husband, family member or other person, various sperm banks offer donor photo matching services, where a consultant matches the client's photo with the donor's photo.
Other Sperm Bank Products:
Various sperm banks may offer other products as well, including Handwriting Analysis (Graphology), donor profile silhouettes, Donor-Look-A-Likes, adult photos and donor selection services.
The cost of donor sperm varies among sperm banks and depends on what combination of products and services you want. Some providers have an array of fees, broken down to the smallest details, such as whether you download a report from the web or have it mailed to you.
Some sperm banks tend to have more complicated fees and charge for every little thing, whereas others may have simpler, more straightforward pricing. Overall, you can expect to pay around $300-$800 per insemination for sperm, including shipping. Usually the cost of sperm is not covered by insurance.
A good rule of thumb is: never assume anything. Always ask your sperm bank to provide a written explanation of all fees and charges.
How do I know the sperm is safe?
By reading the fine print and asking the right questions.
NOTE: This page is intended as an informational guide, not a definitive reference. When selecting a sperm bank, always consult with your physician to ensure the screening performed is appropriate for your medical situation. Please read our disclaimer.
You can use the information on this page as a source for questions to ask your doctor or sperm bank. A good rule of thumb is: never assume anything. Always ask the sperm bank to provide a written explanation of all screening and medical tests performed. If you're not sure, ask!
Screening Sperm
All sperm banks make their donors undergo a complex screening process to reduce the risk of disease. While each sperm bank differs in the kinds of tests it performs, all the banks test for major diseases such as HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
This usually includes a six month quarantine or waiting period during which the sperm is set aside so the test can be performed again later (it can take up to six months for HIV to appear). Some banks periodically re-test their donors at regular intervals.
Types of Screening
Initial donor screening typically includes a physical exam, age selection (for example, donors are typically between 18 and 35), staff interviews, psychological profile and so on. Some banks require donors to be attending college; some have special programs recruiting donors with advanced degrees.
Many banks check for undesirable behavior such as excessive drinking or smoking, or behavior considered high risk for sexually transmitted diseases. A typical sperm bank might accept fewer than ten percent of applicants, some even fewer.
Disease testing to minimize the risk that the sperm carries potentially harmful diseases such as HIV/AIDS, syphilis or hepatitis.
These tests can range from simple cell cultures (eg, for Herpes or Chlamydia), to elaborate chromosome testing for genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis. Many sperm banks test for race-specific diseases where appropriate.
For example, sickle-cell anemia can affect people of African descent, so black donors are usually tested for it. Tay-Sachs is a disease that can affect people of Jewish or French Canadian descent.
Quality testing to measure the sperm's viability typically includes measuring the number of sperm cells (sperm count) and their motility, or how active the cells are. The more active the sperm, the more likely it is to fertilize an egg.
Because the list of diseases and tests that sperm banks perform is long, complex and continually changing as they improve their services, we at SpermCenter.com do not attempt to list every test performed by every sperm bank.
Members often ask, "Can I see photos of the sperm donors?" The answer is usually no.
Most (but not all) sperm donors wish to remain anonymous. When they decide to donate their sperm, they sign a contract with the sperm bank.
Usually, one of the terms in the contract is that the bank agrees to keep the donor's identity private. Some donors do agree to release their identity when any offspring becomes an adult, usually in 18 years. (See our tutorial on ID Release Donors). This doesn't mean you can see the donor's photo now.
Sometimes a donor will give the bank an adult photo on condition that it is used only for photo matching (see our glossary of fertility terms).
Most sperm banks offer some kind of photo-matching service. With photo-matching, you give the bank a photo of your husband/partner or someone else, and the bank selects a donor with similar features or appearance—but you don't get to see a picture of the donor yourself.
That said, some donors do allow their photo to be released, and many provide baby photos. Even when photos are available, sperm banks do not post them on the web for the general public to see; you will usually have to pay a small fee to see a baby or adult photo, often as part of a more detailed donor profile package.
At SpermCenter, we just list whether or not a sperm donor has a photo but we don't specify what kind. You need to contact the sperm bank directly for that information.
There are several factors you may wish to consider in evaluating whether it's important that a donor has had a reported pregnancy.
Many (perhaps even most) women/couples fail to report their pregnancy, so a No doesn't mean this donor has no pregnancies, only none reported. Sperm banks have no way to know if a donor conceives unless the mother/couple tells them.
Relatively new sperm donors may not have had time to have any reported pregnancies.
Pregnancy Reported doesn't tell you how many pregnancies were reported, only that there's at least one.
Sperm banks are highly incentivized to sell only fertile sperm. All sperm banks test sperm for viability by measuring such factors as sperm count and motility (See our page Screening Donor Sperm). On each sperm bank's description page, we provide a link to the bank's own description of their testing/screening procedures.
Taking all these factors into consideration, it's our opinion that Pregnancy Reported doesn't tell you much, if anything, about how likely you are to conceive by a particular donor. We think it's more important to select the donor based on other criteria like ethnicity or genetic disease screening.
That said, many women/couples who experience difficulty conceiving prefer to restrict their search only to donors for whom there is a known pregnancy, which is why many banks report this information.
Blood Type, Rh and Sperm Donors
When choosing a donor, most people don't have to worry about their sperm donor's blood type, unless their goal is to have a baby with a blood type that matches their's or their spouses. If a woman is Rh positive, e.g. A+, O+, B+ or AB+, she doesn't have to worry about blood type at all. If a woman is Rh-, she should consult with her doctor before choosing a donor to discuss possible issues that might come up if she's considering an Rh+ sperm donor.
A, B, O, and AB are the main categories of blood with which most people are familiar. Each blood type is further categorized by the presence (positive) or absence (negative) of antigens in the blood, called the Rh factor (Rhesus factor, named after the kind of monkey first tested for the Rh factor). People who have the Rhesus factor are Rh-positive, so someone with the blood type O who has Rh antigens has O+ blood.
Rh+ people are the most common type. People with no Rhesus factor (people that don't have the antigen in their blood) are considered Rh-.
A blood type's Rh factor is usually considered important with regards to pregnancy, where an Rh+ baby born to an Rh- mother runs the risk of developing Rh disease. Only Rh- women risk having a baby born with the Rhesus factor disease; Rh+ women do not.
If a Woman is Rh-
To conceive an Rh+ baby, an Rh- mother needs to have been with an Rh+ man. An Rh+ man has a 50 percent chance of passing on his Rh+ blood type to a baby he fathers.
The Rhesus factor is less likely to affect a woman's first baby because the woman's blood will have had less time to produce the antibodies to fight off the antigens in the baby's blood. If the woman's immune system responds by producing antibodies, those antibodies will be present in her body for life. Thus, different Rh factor types between a woman and her baby may increase the potential for Rh disease in each following pregnancy.
If the mother is Rh- and the baby is Rh+, and the baby's blood enters the woman's bloodstream during pregnancy, labor, or delivery, the woman's immune method may respond by producing antibodies to fight off the baby's antigens. This incompatibility won't affect the health of the mother but it can affect the baby's health. Potential health problems include jaundice, anemia, brain or heart dysfunction ands in serious cases, fatality.
Preventative measures are available to protect against Rhesus factor. Women should get tested early in their first pregnancy to determine if they are Rh- and whether they are sensitized. Sensitization (when a woman's bodies produces antibodies) may occur anytime a woman and her baby's blood mix. This includes blood tranfusions,normal pregnancy, ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages.
If a woman is Rh- and has not yet been sensitized, she may be injected with a blood product known as Rh immunoglobulin (Rhlg) six months into her pregnancy. This should prevent sensitization for the rest of the pregnancy. The Rhlg shot seeks to destroy any antigens present in the bloodstream before the mother can generate antibodies.
Newborns are reccomended to be tested for their Rhesus blood type. If the baby is Rh+, the mother may receive another Rhlg shot soon after birth to prevent her from sensitization. Rhlg injections only last for a given pregnancy so later pregnancies may need separate Rhlg injections.
Open or ID release donors are sperm donors who have agreed to being contacted by their adult offspring. This is usually when the adult offspring reach age 18.
In the USA the term “Identity Release” was first used in 1983 by the Sperm Bank of California. Today a number of other sperm banks have similar programs but may use different terminology such as “Open Donors.”
These programs may differ somewhat from bank to bank. For example, at one bank it may mean the donor's identity can be released when your child is 18. At another, it may only mean the bank will attempt to contact the donor.
You will also see different terms used to describe this concept. “Open donor,” “willing to be known” and “non-anonymous” for example. At SpermCenter, we use the term Open/ID release since we feel it best fits the concept.
Keep in mind that the essential function of any Open/ID release program, no matter what it’s called, is to give donor offspring a way to contact their sperm donor.
Here are several important facts you should know if you’re considering an Open/ID release donor: