Blog

With Christmas around the corner, there’s almost a guarantee that if you’re not finding it under your own tree, someone you know will likely receive an ancestry DNA test for a gift this year.
The use of at-home DNA kits has soared in the recent years, as they have become a reliable and exciting gift option to give to family and friends for birthdays, Christmas, or just for fun.

You might be wondering why we ask all of our donors to abstain for 3-5 days from any ‘sexual activity’ before donating.  The short answer is that we are looking for the best sample that you can provide and studies suggest that saving your sperm for donation results in superior samples.
Ejaculating only once a day for two days can impact your semen on day of collection as studies have found that this will affect the volume and total sperm count.

For many individuals and couples undergoing fertility treatments, in vitro fertilisation (IVF) can be a challenging but hopeful journey. A recent study published in Reproductive BioMedicine Online explored how artificial intelligence (AI) can help predict the success of IVF cycles, particularly when using frozen-thawed embryos​.
The research analysed 4,300 IVF cycles and identified the most important factors that influence whether an embryo successfully implants and leads to pregnancy.

Male infertility can result from many different reasons, from abnormal formation of sperm to failure of sperm – egg interactions. Medically, the definition of infertility is the inability to conceive a child after twelve months of active or regular unprotected sex.

There are many myths surrounding male fertility, which include, ‘If you have more sex, you will exhaust your sperm supply’. While a delay in the time periods between ejaculation may increase the concentration and volume of the next ejaculate, it is unlikely to have a long term effect on the production of sperm. And, a man may lose all sensations and sexual functions due to a spinal cord injury but still have what the World Health Organisation would consider a 'normal' sperm count.

This year, LSB is supporting the Donor Conception Network’s April appeal by matching every donation, pound for pound, to a value of £3000. We hope to see this amount doubled through our matching, raising funds for the crucial work done by DCN for donor-conceived children and their parents.

In the UK, the journey to parenthood through sperm donation can take two distinct paths: the thoroughly regulated environment of fertility clinics and the largely uncharted territory of unregulated, informal arrangements.