We can help you monitor your cycle – we can even make sure you have maximal fertility while taking medications – but we cannot complete a cervical or intrauterine insemination.

This could put you in the difficult position of being tempted to doing inseminations at home yourself. We cannot speak to the medical safety of doing so, or to the emotional risks of the parties involved, nor to the legal risks up to and including the child support implicit in the biological father’s participation.

What alternatives do you have?

Health Canada will approve known-donor insemination, when the sperm is frozen for six months in an approved setting. As noted above, the only approved setting in Canada is at ReproMed. You would need to contact them directly.

Unfortunately, your known donor may not match Health Canada’s criteria for suitability for known sperm donor. Under these circumstances, there is a special release called “DSSAP”. For example, if your potential donor has had homosexual relations, or is over the age of forty, then sperm could only be released through DSSAP. At Hannam Fertility, we do not work with DSSAP sperm, as it is not in our opinion a process regulated and approved by Health Canada. We can, however, forward your care to other clinics that may well be willing to provide this service.

Though we cannot support known donor sperm insemination, we are comfortable supporting your right to understand and maximize your own personal fertility through cycle monitoring and/or medications where necessary.

These, and additional, guidelines were put in place by Assisted Human Reproduction Canada (AHRC) in 2006, to enforce the Assisted Human Reproduction Act of 2004. However, the AHRC was wound down in 2012 in response to a 2010 Supreme Court of Canada ruling. Health Canada now administers the guidelines. Specific limits of jurisdiction continue to be debated and interpreted. These limits are of particular interest to people interested in third party reproduction (donor eggs, donor sperm, and gestational carriers). Since the legal restrictions to clinical care are not always straightforward, different clinics are responding differently. We believe we have a very conservative interpretation of the law that maximizes healthy outcomes for all parties concerned. If you have any specific questions about how the laws of Canada may impact you, you may want to speak with Sherry Levitan (416-784-1222) or Kelly Jordan (416-203-2899 x 29), lawyers with a particular interest in and experience with reproductive medicine.

The post What are the guidelines for known sperm donation? appeared first on Fertility.ca.

However, there are some logistical challenges limiting choice. There is only one Canadian sperm bank: ReproMed, based in Toronto.

To allow for a greater variety of sperm available to Canadians, Health Canada has allowed for the importation of non-altruistically-donated sperm. Including ReproMed, there are three organizations that import sperm, the other two are Outreach Health Service and CanAmCryo. At our clinic we endorse Outreach and ReproMed.

When you choose sperm, Health Canada recommends that women who have never been exposed to Cytomegalovirus (i.e. “CMV negative”) should choose sperm that is also CMV negative. We test for CMV status for all women considering donor sperm.

When you make a purchase you’ll be offered washed and/or unwashed sperm samples. We re-wash the sperm regardless. From our perspective, there’s no functional difference which sample you’d choose to purchase. We see equal pregnancy rates from either approach.

When doing donor sperm inseminations, we ask that women trigger ovulation (usually with Ovidrel), to ensure that the timing of insemination is ideal. We use one sperm unit per cycle.

We’ll provide you with information on the count of the sperm being inseminated, and the average motility. Using fresh samples as a reference frame, we like to see at least 5 million sperm in the washed sample with 80% or greater motility. We won’t always see these numbers with frozen-thawed sperm: you may have a reduced success rate.

The success statistics that support the donor-sperm program are available from your clinical team and can be individualized to your specific situation by your doctor.

Next post, we’ll be covering guidelines for known donors.

The post We’re considering using an anonymous sperm donor. How does it work in Canada? appeared first on Fertility.ca.