The Leicester Fertility Centre actively recruits and screens sperm donors for our own sperm bank for our donor insemination service.

The sperm bank is also used for the storage of sperm for men before they receive radiotherapy or chemotherapy for malignant diseases. As these treatments may have a permanently harmful effect on subsequent sperm production, sperm banking before treatment is commenced, provides men with the possibility of future fertility using their own sperm.

The Leicester Fertility Centre also offers this service for those men who wish to bank sperm before a vasectomy operation.

Patients undergoing Assisted Conception treatment may bank sperm prior to treatment if they have any concerns about being able to produce a sample on the day of treatment.

Patient treatment information booklets

Sperm Donor information.pdf

Sperm donors

Becoming a sperm donor

Why are sperm donors required?

1 in 7 couples will have fertility problems. For some, you could be their only hope. Your gift will be important and could help a couple have child.

Sperm donation is a well-established form of assisted conception treatment. It has been used for more than one hundred years. In the United Kingdom it is a legally accepted form of treatment. Around 13,000 donor insemination cycles are carried out annually in the United Kingdom with more than 1,300 children born in the period between 1997-1998. In some countries, sperm donation is not allowed. The use of frozen sperm is now mandatory in many countries to minimize the risk of HIV transmission to the recipients.

Some couples are unable to have children because of absence of sperm in the semen of the male partner. The only way they can have a child is to use the sperm of an unknown donor using artificial insemination. Male infertility is quite common and for many couples donor insemination is the only way to achieve a family, the demand for donor sperm usually exceeds the supply so clinics have to rely of advertising for men to come forward and donate.

All potential donors are dealt with in confidence.

National Gamete Donation Trust NGDT

To help you understand what is involved in egg or sperm donation and how to go about becoming a donor you can contact the NGDT

confidential help line on 0845 226 9193 (local rate)

.

They will be able to give you impartial advice or put you into contact to someone who has already been through the process. Alternatively you can email on info@ngdt.co.uk.

The office is open between 9.00am-5.00pm Mon/Wed/Fri and 11.00am-7.00pm Tue/Thur. Outside these hours you can leave a confidential message on their answering machine.

Which men are suitable?

You should be between the ages of 18 and 40, be in good health, with no family history of medical or hereditary disorders.

You will be required to complete a questionnaire about your family medical history.

All potential donors will be interviewed in order to discuss the implications of becoming a sperm donor.

In order to complete the program we would only recruit men who are going to be resident in the local area for at least one year and who can attend the clinic on a regular basis. We are open Monday to Friday during office hours.

Because some sperm die during freezing procedures, it is essential for sperm donors to have a high number of normal motile sperm in the ejaculate. Some fertile men may not be suitable as sperm donors

Screening tests

In order to be accepted as a donor you will need to provide a semen sample for examination. Up to seventy percent of samples fail this initial examination, usually because the sperm fail to survive the freeze/thaw procedure.

A blood sample will be taken in order to determine your blood group and to test for blood borne infections such as HIV the AIDS virus, Hepatitis B and C and syphilis. These tests will be repeated at six monthly intervals. Samples cannot be used until they have been in quarantine for six months and repeat tests are negative.

As part of the assessment process you will be asked to produce a semen sample for analysis and when this is examined there is always a possibility that they may diagnose a problem. In such cases, the clinic would offer help and advice to you to understand how this may affect your future fertility.

If you are concerned about the possibility of finding this out then you should consider very carefully whether you should put yourself forward to be a donor. The staff at the clinic will be able to discuss this with you in order to help you reach a decision.

Counselling

This is an important stage of donation. Counselling provides an opportunity for the donors to discuss any concerns about donation and for the counsellors to ensure that they fully understand the implications of donating their eggs or sperm. Several points are worth considering and may be discussed in counselling sessions.

• All prospective donors should be offered adequate counselling, but they are not obliged to accept it.
• Donors should be comfortable with their decision and in donating their eggs or sperm they must renounce all rights to them.
• The woman who gave birth to the child is the mother of the child.
• The donor should be informed of the social and psychological uncertainty and the risk that a birth may not occur.
• The donor must accept that he may have genetic offspring's whose existence or characteristics will not be disclosed.
• The donor should feel free to withdraw from the program at any time without the threat of financial penalty or fear of recrimination.
• In the United Kingdom, The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) is required by law to keep on its own register of information about individuals who donate eggs or sperm and patients who receive donated eggs or sperm.

Donor sperm will not normally be used once the number of children believed to have been born from them has reached ten, in order to decrease the chance of offspring intermarriage.

A donor can withdraw (or vary) the nature of his consent at any time in the future and for whatever reason. In order to do this, he should contact the centre and explain his wishes. We will be obliged to carry out your instructions. However, if at the outset you are thinking about withdrawing your consent at a later date then you should make the centre aware of your concerns.

With your consent we will write to your GP asking if there is anything in your own or your family medical history that would make it inadvisable for you to become a donor.

Who should not become a sperm donor

Occasionally potential donors may carry the AIDS-HIV virus unknowingly; the virus can be transmitted by semen and subsequently a pregnant woman can transmit the infection to her baby, with serious consequences. Because of this men in high-risk groups for HIV must not donate sperm.

High -risk groups include:

• Men who have had sex with other men.
• Intravenous drug users
• Men who have visited areas known to have large numbers of AIDS cases and have had sex with men or women living there.
• The sexual partners of the above groups.

We cannot accept men who have been exposed to or infected with HIV, Hepatitis B or C, syphilis, genital herpes or genital warts.

There also a number of medical and hereditary diseases that would exclude you becoming a donor and you will be asked to complete a questionnaire detailing your own and your families medical history.

How much informationabout me is given to the recipients of the sperm?

Donor banks in this country are required to be licensed by the HFEA, where details relating to each donor are recorded. Donors are requested to provide a pen portrait of themselves, as this information is helpful and greatly valued by donor children.

Amendments to The Human Fertilisation & Act (HFE Act) were introduced from 1st April 2005. However this law will not affect donors who donated prior to 1st April 2005 who will remain anonymous.

These amendments have removed the anonymity of donors; this means that children born as a result of your donation can have access to identifying information about their donor once they reach the age of 18.

The recipients of donor sperm will not have access to identifying information.

Although the process of giving out information has not been formally identified, it is anticipated that donors will be contacted by the HFEA or organising body to liaise between donors and people born as a result of donation before any contact is established. Donors will therefore retain control over how much contact they wish to have with their genetic offspring.

There is no change to donors' responsibilities towards these offspring, as before donors have no financial or legal obligations to these children.

The law states that once a donor has consented to the use of his sperm for treatment he has no legal or parental rights over any children born as a result of his donations.

Acknowledgement can now be made of pregnancies resulting from donations.

Parental responsibilities and donating outside a licensed clinic

As far as parental responsibilities are concerned; donors who donate at a licensed clinic are protected by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990.

The Act clearly provides that the donor is not the father of the child born from his/her donation. However, in the case of donation outside a licensed clinic, the same protection of the donor is not offered and the donor may be regarded as the father, for example if the couple are not married.

Donors donating outside a licensed clinic are advised to take legal advice.

Who Will Be The Legal Parents Of A Child Born From Your Donation?

It is the law that the woman receiving treatment and her husband or male partner being treated with her will be the legal parents, although you will be the genetic parent of any child born. You will have no legal relationship to any child born, nor will you have any legal rights over or obligations to any child born. In the same way any child born will have no legal relationship with you, no rights over you and no obligations to you.

Will I get paid for donating sperm?

The sperm donors in the United Kingdom are altruistic volunteers. This means no financial gains to the donors in donating their sperm; they are only paid reasonable expenses. Donors are paid in some countries.

If you have travelled to the centre by public transport you may be entitled to expenses, you will be asked to provide receipts to support your claim.

Once accepted as a donor you will be paid expenses of £250 per course of donation. A course of donations consists of 15 samples. . However some of this payment will be withheld until after the six-month quarantine period for the sperm samples has been reached, and after necessary blood tests have been carried out.

Donors should ideally produce two samples a week; these are required to be produced at the clinic by masturbation in the room allocated for this purpose.

If interested or you would like further information please telephone the Assisted Conception Unit, Leicester Royal Infirmary on 0116 2585944