Baby Sperm

Baby Sperm
Medically Reviewed by Trina Pagano, MD on October 24, 2020
You may know it takes one sperm and one egg to make a baby , but if you're like most folks, you might not remember much else about sperm from biology class. If infertility is an issue for you and your partner, it helps to understand the basics.
The answer depends on a number of things, but the most important is where the sperm are located.
On a dry surface, such as clothing or bedding, sperm are dead by the time the semen has dried. In water, such as a warm bath or hot tub, they'll likely live longer because they thrive in warm, wet places. But the odds that sperm in a tub of water will find their way inside a woman's body and cause them to get pregnant are extremely low.
When sperm are inside women's body, they can live for up to 5 days. If you're a man and you have sex even a few days before your partner ovulates, there's chance they may get pregnant.
How many sperm do you need to get pregnant?
It takes just one sperm to fertilize a woman's egg. Keep in mind, though, for each sperm that reaches the egg, there are millions that don't.
On average, each time men ejaculate they release nearly 100 million sperm. Why are so many sperm released if it takes only one to make a baby? To meet the waiting egg, semen must travel from the vagina to the fallopian tubes, a tough journey that few sperm survive. Experts believe this process may be nature's way of allowing only the healthiest sperm to fertilize the egg, to provide the best chances of having a healthy baby .
For those sperm that complete the trip, getting into the egg, which is covered by a thick layer, is far from a sure thing.
Is there anything you can do to improve the health of your sperm?
Many of the things you do to keep yourself healthy can also do the same for sperm. Try some of these tips:
It's a test that can help your doctor figure out why you and your partner are having trouble having a baby.
Some things you can learn from the analysis:
Amount and thickness of semen. On average, each time men ejaculate they release 2-6 milliliters (mL) of semen, or around a 1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon.
Less than that amount may not contain enough sperm for a woman to get pregnant. On the other hand, more than that could dilute the concentration of sperm.
Semen should be thick to start with and become thinner 10 to 15 minutes after ejaculation. Semen that stays thick may make it difficult for sperm to move.
Sperm concentration. Also called sperm density, this is the number of sperm in millions per milliliter of semen. Fifteen million or more sperm per mL is considered normal.
Sperm motility. This is the percentage of sperm in a sample that are moving, as well as an assessment of how they move. One hour after ejaculation, at least 32% of sperm should be moving forward in a straight line.
Morphology. This is an analysis of the size, shape, and appearance of sperm.
Do men stop making sperm when they're older?
Men can continue to be fertile throughout life. The amount of sperm you make goes down as you get older, but even elderly men have fathered children.
University of California, Santa Barbara, SexInfo Online: "How Long Can Sperm Live in Air? In a Bath?" "Semen;" and "Making Strong Sperm."
WomensHealth.gov: "Trying to Conceive."
Oakland University: "Dr. Lindemann's Sperm Facts."
University of Michigan Health System: "Male Infertility."
Lab Tests Online: "Semen Analysis."
MedlinePlus.gov: "Aging changes in the male reproductive system."
IVFMD.com: "New World Health Semen Analysis Parameters."
How much do you know about conception?
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Anawalt BD, et al. Causes of male infertility. https://www.uptodate.com/contents/search. Accessed Jan. 27, 2022.
Reproductive infertility. Endocrine Society. https://www.endocrine.org/patient-engagement/endocrine-library/infertility. Accessed Jan. 27, 2022.
Hornstein MD, et al. Optimizing natural fertility in couples planning pregnancy. https://www.uptodate.com/contents/search. Accessed Jan. 27, 2022.
McAninch JW, et al. Male infertility. In: Smith and Tanagho's General Urology. 19th ed. McGraw Hill; 2020. https:// accessmedicine.mhmedical.com. Accessed Jan. 27, 2022.
Men's reproductive health in the workplace. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/repro/mensWorkplace.html. Accessed Jan. 27, 2022.
Fainberg J, et al. Recent advances in understanding and managing male fertility. F1000Research. 2019; doi: 10.12688/f1000research.17076.1.

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Healthy sperm aren't always a given. Understand how lifestyle factors can affect your sperm and what you can do to improve your fertility.
People planning a pregnancy might wonder about the health of their sperm. Know what can affect male fertility — then consider steps to help the sperm achieve the goal.
The male reproductive system makes, stores and moves sperm. Testicles produce sperm. Fluid from the seminal vesicles and prostate gland combine with sperm to make semen. The penis ejaculates semen during sexual intercourse.
Sperm health depends on various factors, including quantity, movement and structure:
Various medical issues can contribute to male fertility problems, including:
Age also can play a role. The ability of sperm to move and the number of typical sperm tend to decrease with age, affecting fertility, especially after age 50.
Simple steps to increase the chances of producing healthy sperm include:
Sperm can be especially vulnerable to environmental factors, such as exposure to excessive heat or toxic chemicals. To protect fertility:
Chemotherapy and radiation therapy for cancer can impair sperm production and cause infertility that might be permanent. Ask a health care provider about the possibility of retrieving and storing sperm before treatment.
Adopting healthy lifestyle practices to promote fertility — and avoiding things that can damage it — can improve the chances of conceiving. If you and your partner haven't gotten pregnant after a year of unprotected sex, however, you might consider being evaluated for infertility. A fertility specialist might be able to identify the cause of the problem and provide treatments that place you and your partner on the road to parenthood.
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From ovulation to ejaculation, these are all the different steps that need to happen to make a baby.

By Kristina Cappetta

November 22, 2018

We all know the basics of making a baby. You have sex, then the sperm travels a long way to meet an egg. And boom—you have a baby. Right? Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that.
Knowing the mechanics of how you get pregnant can be helpful when it comes to understanding your fertility. So here is exactly what happens.
Without ovulation, you will not be able to conceive a child naturally. Ovulation is the process that releases a mature egg from a woman’s ovary into one of the fallopian tubes so it can be fertilized. Ovulation is prompted by a series of hormonal changes.
A couple of days before ovulation, one follicle in the ovary becomes the dominant follicle and it carries the oocyte (an immature egg cell) for that month, explains Sara Twogood, an OB/GYN and assistant professor of clinical obstetrics and gynaecology at the USC Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles. The dominant follicle isn’t identified until a couple of days before ovulation then matures until ovulation, she adds.
You will experience a spike in luteinizing hormone, the egg cell undergoes changes, then 36 hours after the LH surge, the oocyte will be released from the ovary, which is what we call ovulation.
Since each woman’s menstrual cycle differs in length, the exact time of ovulation varies. Most women ovulate about 14 days before their period. But things like stress or illness can affect your hormones and in turn influence when you ovulate.
An egg by itself isn’t going to produce a baby. It needs to have a rendezvous with a man’s sperm.
It’s estimated that men make 1,500 sperm every second of every day! You don’t need to be a mathematician to know that’s a lot of sperm.
But it takes 72 days for a single sperm to mature. Each starts as a germ cell that, when nourished by “nurse cells” in the testicle, become sperm. When it finally grows a tail, it can swim out into the epididymis (the duct behind the testes). Here, the sperm will brush up on its swimming skills and hang out until it leaves the body through ejaculation.
When men ejaculate, they can release anywhere from 40 million to one billion sperm! While that number seems high, very few make it to the egg.
The vagina is a very acidic and deadly environment for these little guys (many die within minutes of arriving)—and that’s just the beginning of a long and tedious journey for them. The sperm must swim through the cervix to get to the uterus and eventually find their way to the fallopian tube. There is no GPS, so by this point many sperm have swum in the wrong direction or have just run out of energy.
Once the sperm finds the fallopian tube, it’s all about timing.
If the sperm is lucky, a woman would have just ovulated and an egg will be on its way soon. But this waiting game is one with an expiration date. Sperm can stay alive for 72 hours, perhaps a bit more, in the female reproductive system, says Twogood. But after ovulation, an egg only lives for 24 hours at most. So it really is a race against time for the sperm and the egg to meet. And your odds of getting pregnant each month are 25 to 35 percent if you are under 35 years of age.
When a sperm does finally meet the egg, it’s time to get down to business. “There is an activation that helps the sperm penetrate the outer protective layer of the egg, and enzymes are released that remove the extraneous parts of the sperm so the chromosomes can join with those of the egg,” says Twogood.
Once the sperm and egg connect, the zona pellucida (the external surface of the egg) undergoes a reaction, which makes it impossible for other sperm to attach and penetrate the egg, explains Twogood.
In a perfect world, the sperm makes it to the fallopian tube, waits for the egg and fertilizes it inside the uterus. However, in rare cases the fertilized egg implants somewhere other than the uterus. When this happens, an ectopic pregnancy can form. This typically happens inside the fallopian tube and is not a viable pregnancy. If not dealt with immediately, it can be life-threatening. According to the Mayo Clinic, the first sign of an ectopic pregnancy is pelvic pain. You should also watch out for light vaginal bleeding, an urge to have a bowel movement and shoulder pain. If your tube ruptures, the pelvic pain will get worse and you may experience light-headedness and even faint.
If the egg is never fertilized, the lining of the uterus is shed and you get your period. Contrary to what some people believe, sperm doesn’t come out when you get your period—they die off and get absorbed by the body.
Each sperm carries a different chromosome—an X or Y. While a man can’t control which sperm will make it to the egg, he will ultimately decide the sex of the baby because all unfertilized eggs carry an X chromosome. If the egg meets with a sperm that is also carrying an X chromosome, little Julie will be here in nine months. If the egg meets with a sperm carrying a Y chromosome, get ready for a little Jake.
You may wonder if there are any positions that are better than others for increasing your chances of conceiving. Ejaculation inside the vagina is necessary to make a baby, but it doesn’t actually matter which position makes that happen, explains Twogood. Some people think lying on your back for several minutes after getting busy will act like a speed pass for the sperm to get to its destination. That’s not true, says Twogood.
It’s also not true that a woman needs to have an orgasm to get pregnant. “It’s theorized that the contractions of the cervix and the uterus may help facilitate the movement of the sperm,” says Twogood. But there has never been any research to back up this belief. So, in the end, do what feels right for you and your partner. With the right timing, you could have a baby in nine months!
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