Everything You Need To Know About Sperm Donation
What is the Legislation?
Donor sperm from live donors is permissible in Ireland. The donor is not allowed to receive information about the identity of the recipient couple or the child, and has no paternal rights. At the moment, there are no sperm donation facilities located in Ireland and so most Irish fertility clinics use sperm banks in Denmark, similar to the UK. Sperm is imported from the below sperm banks.
Cryos International Sperm Bank www.cryosinternational.com
European Sperm Bank www.europeanspermbank.com
When sperm donation is carried out within a fertility clinic, a decision has to be made on whether to choose an identifiable (known) or anonymous donor. This does not mean that you as a parent can receive the donor's identifying information. It means that any child born using an identifiable donor will, at the age of consent, be entitled to the donor's identifying information.
Important Update: Legislation is about to be enacted in Ireland that will prohibit the use of non-identifiable (“anonymous”) donors. This means that all donors will be known and all children born will be entitled to the donor's identifying information
The regulations differ when home insemination with sperm from a known donor is done. In Ireland, when sperm donation is carried out, the known donor will have the same legal parental rights as any other unmarried father. This is frustrating for female same-sex couples because the woman who does not give birth to the child cannot be recognised as its legal parent, even where she is married to or in a civil partnership with the child’s birth mother. In 2009, the Oireachtas had not enacted any legislation allocating parental rights in the context of donor-assisted human reproduction — that is why the Supreme Court treated the known donor the same as any other unmarried father and enabled him to benefit from existing legislation applicable to such fathers. The Assisted Human Reproduction Regulatory Authority AHRRA, the State regulatory body, could approve sperm-donation agreements between intended parents and known donors before any home insemination can take place in the draft legislation yet to be released.
Update: Legislation is about to be enacted in Ireland that will prohibit the use of non-identifiable (“anonymous”) donors. This means that all donors will be
What Are The Costs?
Costs vary depending on treatment choice. If you are planning to use the donor sperm in a Uterine Insemination (IUI) cycle it could cost you about €1,000 (One IUI cycle cost approximately €500 per cycle and each straw of sperm is €500 -from an anonymous donor). One straw from a known donor can cost up to €1,000. IVF on the other hand, incurs additional costs with cycles costing around €4,500. There can also be additional costs such as freezing storage fees (usually paid on an annual basis).
‘Straws’: Frozen sperm samples are stored in straws - thin flexible tubes- and kept in a storage tank with liquid nitrogen at -196C. A straw of donor sperm used for insemination contains 0.5 millilitres, so a straw should give you a total of over 10 million sperm cells for insemination each of about 0.5ml in volume. Normally between 5 and 20 straws may be prepared from each single ejaculate. 1 straw equals 1 unit of sperm.
How Are Donors Selected?
All donors have to go through a rigorous screening process.
The screening process includes:
Their medical and sexual history, and a screen of their family’s medical history, detailed sexual history and history of any sexually transmitted infections etc.
A physical examination
Blood tests in line with international best practice (HIV, STD’s). These are down twice to ensure the results are accurate. First when the man applies to become a donor, but also after the samples have been frozen for six months and re-tested
What If I Want More Children In the Future Using The Same Donor Sperm?
This is possible, however, regulations in some countries are in place surrounding the amount of times a single donor’s sperm can be purchased in the same country and so the best advice is to check with your fertility clinic to see where the sperm originated. If it falls into a category with specific limits, it my be best to secure additional sperm than required for your IUI or IVF cycle at the outset, and store it for future use.
As per the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (UK) - HFEA, donated sperm cannot be used to create more than 10 families, with no limits on the number of children born within each family. However, you can choose a lower limit if you wish. In practice, less than 1% of donors create 10 families with most sperm donors creating one or two families, with one or two children in each family. The reason limits are set on the number of families you can help create is that we know through consultation this is the level which donors and donor-conceived people feel comfortable with in terms of the numbers of potential donor-conceived children, half-siblings and families that might be created.
Why Would I Need Donor Sperm?
If your male partner is a carrier for a genetic abnormality that could be inherited
If you have had repeated failed ICSI/TESE cycles due to suboptimal sperm quality
If you are single or in a same-sex female relationship
Donor sperm is used in IUI or IVF cycles. Let us explain more…
IUI
Intra-Uterine Insemination is a proccess in which specialised medication (in the form of tablets or self- injections) is used to stimulate the ovaries to produce eggs, and a further injection (HCG) is used to release them at the optimum time. Following this, the sperm sample is prepared in the laboratory one hour prior to the procedure, then drawn into a fine catheter and inserted into the uterus. This maximises the chance of pregnancy occurring, as both the egg(s) and sperm are in the reproductive tract at the same time.
IVF
Often offering the best chances for those receiving fertility treatments, the IVF process involves collecting eggs from the woman’s ovaries and placing these together with prepared sperm. The sperm and egg develop into an embryo in special laboratory conditions and are then transferred back into the uterus a few days later.