With low sperm count, pregnancy is still possible – Urologist
Consultant Urologist at Ogah Hospital and Urology Centre, Fugar, Edo State, Dr. Gabriel Ogah, has said men with a sperm count of an average of 4 million sperm count can still impregnate their wives.
According to the urologist, there may be no such thing as normal sperm count as research has found that men who had an average of three or four million sperm count were able to impregnate their wives.
Medical News Today, an online health portal noted that sperm count refers to the average number of sperm present in one sample of semen.
According to the site, the most recent World Health Organisation guidelines, stipulates that healthy sperm count is considered to be from 15 million per millilitre per ejaculate.
Mayo Clinic, another site, noted that normal sperm “densities range from 15 million to greater than 200 million sperm per millilitre of semen.”
It added, “You are considered to have a low sperm count if you have fewer than 15 million sperm per millilitre or less than 39 million sperm total per ejaculate.
“Some men with low sperm counts successfully father children. Likewise, some men with normal sperm counts are unable to father children.
“Even if you have enough sperm, other factors are important to achieve a pregnancy, including normal sperm movement.”
But the consultant urologist, while speaking with PUNCH HealthWise, said there may be no such thing as a normal sperm count as research in which he participated in found that men with an average of 4 million per millilitre, were still able to impregnate their wives normally.
“There’s no such thing as normal sperm count because we did a research about 35 years ago, where we examined male lecturers in Ahmadu Bello University.
“We found that the lecturers’ sperm count was at an average of three million to four million and they impregnated their wives normally.
“Nobody knows what a normal sperm count is. Just that on the average, you say a normal sperm count is from three million and above, but we know men who have three million and they are impregnating their wives.”
He, however, warned that the ability of a man to produce sperm does not always translate to fertility, as men naturally produce sperm.
He noted that other factors that can influence fertility in men include sperm motility and potency.
