To raise students’ awareness about reproductive health, Shanghai’s only sperm bank launched a competition. Students in Shanghai can get a free check-up of their sperm during the summer break from the Shanghai Human Sperm Bank to determine which sperm contains the most swimmers and which is the most vigorous, the institute announced on WeChat last week. Participants will be registered anonymously, so the winners will be ‘nameless heroes’, according to the institute.
‘The sperm competition is not to gather sperm from university students, but to raise awareness about reproductive health among young people’, said Chen Xiangfeng, a doctor at Shanghai Renji Hospital who is in charge of the sperm bank. ‘Don’t worry about it after you become a mother. By recognizing unhealthy living habits and lifestyles at an early age, you can make changes in a timely manner,’ he said, adding that many university students have expressed interest in the competition. On the mainland, there are 27 licensed sperm banks, all of which are publicly funded. Chinese law prohibits sperm banks from selling sperm to individuals but allows them to sell sperm to designated hospitals treating couples with reproductive problems.
Sperm quality has declined for the past five years, with only 25-30 percent of sperm donated to the Shanghai institute considered usable, said Chen. According to him, deteriorating sperm quality is due to high social pressure and unhealthy lifestyle choices, but he did not provide specific details. ‘Young people sleep late, there is an open attitude towards sex on university campuses, and many of them have bad life rhythms. As a result of these factors, the quality of sperm is dropping,’ Lu Guangxiu, president of Citic-Xiangya Reproductive and Genetic Hospital of Changsha of Hunan, told.
According to a report from China News Service, 45.9 percent of sperm donated to the Changsha sperm bank in 2006 was usable whereas 17.9 percent was in 2015. In the past few years, about half of the donors to Shanghai’s sperm bank were students. There are no specific statistics on this group’s sperm quality. Students who have participated in the sperm health competition and whose sperm meet the standard will be asked if they are willing to donate sperm in the future. Depending on the sperm volume in each donation, the whole process takes about six months.
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Since there are only about 2 milliliters of sperm per donation and the bank needs about 20 milliliters per donor, a person has to donate about eight times. The sperm bank announced that its donors would be compensated as much as 7,500 yuan (1,159 dollars) in order to cover their expenses for transportation, healthy eating, and effort. ‘The acceptance standard for sperm donation is 60 million sperm cells in each ml of sperm, while sperm with a concentration of 15 million sperm cells for every ml of sperm are considered normal. Thus, even if their sperm does not meet our bank’s standard, it does not mean they are infertile,’ Chen explained.
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