Male Infertility

What is male infertility?

Male infertility is usually related to a sperm disorder. This is when there are too few sperm cells or when the sperm are not of good enough quality. This is why, when a couple presents at their IPSA fertility clinic for infertility investigations, the first laboratory test that your IPSA fertility practitioner will recommend is usually a semen analysis.

Men constantly renew their supply of germ cells (the germ cells later develop into sperm cells), and a single semen ejaculate can contain up to 200 million sperm cells. For fertilisation, a normal sperm count is 20 million sperm cells per millilitre. The sperm sample is also assessed for motility (more than half should be motile) and shape (a third should have a normal shape).