This archive report was first published on 11 July 2019.
Men are being told that their sperm is getting old, and that freezing it now is the solution to future fertility problems. Companies like Dadi and Legacy are selling fertility insurance to men, warning them that their sperm quality will decline with age, and that they risk further damaging their sperm through modern-day living.
According to Ashok Agarwal, Ph.D., director of research at the American Center for Reproductive Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, both age and lifestyle are factors that can erode semen quality. However, freezing sperm is not a guarantee of fertility, and it comes with a hefty price tag.
For example, Dadi requires a storage commitment up front of about $100, and every year's worth of storage fees drains you of another $99 to $500. If you freeze at 25, store till you're 40, and pay out of pocket, any offspring will have cost you $1,500 to $7,500 in sperm-storage fees alone by the time he or she even appears.
But is sperm freezing ever the right choice? According to David Ryley, M.D., a reproductive endocrinologist at Boston IVF, there are cases when freezing is the right call, such as if you have an issue that can hurt semen quality, or if you're in the military and want to protect against a worst-case scenario. Otherwise, he says, young men do not need to proactively freeze their sperm.
“If men want to enhance their fertility, they should do what they know they should be doing,” says Ryley. “Keep it to a max of two drinks a day, don’t smoke, and lay off the bourbon-vanilla-bean-truffle ice cream. Spend your money on better food instead.”
