Articles | Sperm donor shortage warning

Sperm donor shortage warning

Published: Wednesday, 12 November 2008, 7:54AM

Experts are calling for action to deal with the shortage of sperm donors in the UK.

The number declined after legal changes in 2005 meant children can now trace their biological parents when they are 18.

The move has largely been blamed for the overall decline in the number of sperm donors since the 1990s, and fewer women than ever are conceiving children using a donor.

Leading experts in the field are now calling for a raft of measures to increase the availability of donor sperm.

The current limit of ten families that can be created by a single donor is "arbitrary and not evidence-based", they claim.

Dr Mark Hamilton, chairman of the British Fertility Society (BFS), and Dr Allan Pacey, secretary of the BFS, called for more "sperm sharing" schemes to be set up.

Such programmes allow the male partners of women needing fertility treatment to donate sperm in return for cut-price IVF. Similar schemes are already in place for egg-sharing.

The doctors said around 4,000 UK patients needed donor sperm each year, meaning a minimum of 500 new donors are required every year to meet demand.