Prevent Infertility and Paternal Age Related Autism and Schizophrenia etc. in Offspring

NEW DELHI: Call it innovative insurance. More and more young men in Delhi who are busy chasing fast-track careers, but are not yet ready to start a family, are choosing to freeze their sperms — to be used when they are ready.

More than 50% of the long-term frozen samples in Delhi's sole commercial sperm banking organisation, Cryogenie, are of healthy young men who are not ready for procreation and do not want to rely on donor sperms either.

Says Dr Iqbal Mehdi, head of cryobanking services at Cryogenie, "The long-term banking facility was initially started with malignancy patients in mind. People who undergo chemo or radiotherapy often suffer from low sperm counts so they store semen before the treatment starts. It was much later that we realised that freezing of sperms gave healthy individuals the option of starting a family when they want to, no matter what their age."


and also this article from Mumbai





“Many who are working in the US or Dubai for long periods of time are freezing their sperms so that their wives can be impregnated here at home,” says Dr Gautam Allahbadi, scientific director, Rotunda.

The growing awareness has also seen a rise in the number of cancer patients opting to save their sperm. Cancer treatment is known to reduce sperm count drastically. “Many oncologists are sending such patients to us to help them freeze their sperm and assure them a family,” says Malpani.

Add to this the changing attitude among women. With an increasing number putting marriage and children on a standby mode the average conceiving age of women is now early-30s, up from mid-20s a couple of years back.

This trend, however, has left women in urban India with an average of just 5-6 ‘good years’ to get pregnant. “Women are unwilling to wait. They would rather use the intrauterine insemination technique that involves injecting sperm in the uterus,” says Anjali Malpani.

Anirudha and Anjali Malpani have been running their infertility clinic for the last 15 years, and have noticed a sea-change in attitude towards assisted pregnancy and sperm banking. But there is still a long way to go.