How long do sperm survive??

Hi ladies - anyone know how long spermies can servive inside you?? I have heard varying lengths, but not sure of average time in days and whether the quality drops off after a certain period of time. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks!

I believe 2 days, although I've heard that in EWCM they can live up to five days... but by then most of them will be pretty dead or useless.

It's worth noting that the Y sperm are very short-lived, only a day or so inside a woman, but they're "top quality" and really fast and excitable. The X sperm are not as souped up but can last longer - basically, sperm have finite resources and the Y sperm go through those resources faster than the X, although as time goes on the more resources are used to stay alive so there may not be enough left in there to be all active over the eggie.

HTH!

I think it's around 3 days, this is why when TTC a girl you bd up to 3 days prior to O to only have the X (girl makers) alive and swimming still :)

Sperm can live up to 5 days in optimal conditions whilst the egg only lasts for 12 - 24 hours.

Lisa

I agree with what Ryn has said. It is widely said that sperm can last up to five days - and they can - however they are pretty much had it by then. Of course, science is often defied by nature and it does sometimes happen just not that often.

OK, remind me to tell my doctor that he is wrong then.

Lisa

Exactly what I posted above. Sperm can live for up to 5 days in optimal conditions. And they do on a regular basis, not at all what Deb has posted. 5 day old sperm fertilise more eggs than they are given credit for is what I have been told.

Lisa

HI gals,

a question relating to spermie life span. If dh and I bd'ed on Saturday at midnight and I O'd on the Sunday, its a pretty good chance that all the spermies were alive and well on O day?

thanks
lisa

Aww Lisa I didn't say your doctor was wrong. I agreed that sperm can last longer than 72 hours. However, after this time they are less likely to be healthy and to fertilise an egg. That is what our data says. In a laboratory setting there are far fewer sperm left after 72 hours than in the first 72. It is amazing to see them all bizzing around and slowly they drop off. However there are certainly some there just fewer with less healthy structure.

As Ryn says when there are optimal conditions (ie ewcm) sperm can swim around longer and retain their structure.

Each practitioner will have their own view and each woman will have formed her own opinion. Even the frequency of intercourse when trying to conceive is a point of conjecture amongst many of our experts.

Some recent studies reported in a recent journal have stated that daily intercourse is the best bet if trying to conceive. Also that couples should be having intercourse frequently throughout the entire cycle for optimal sperm motility. The secondary reason given for this was that some ovum will survive 12 hours or less and therefore frequent fresh sperm is the best bet of conception.
Other 'experts' say second daily intercourse is best. So, I guess each clinic and each practitioner will have their own opinions.

Of course as all of us on this somtimes frustrating trying to conceive journey know that intercourse in the days prior to and close to the time of ovulation gives the best chance of conception.

My girlfriend conceived her daughter with a single act of intercourse 4 days prior to her expected ovulation - it most certainly does happen!

Ryn also highlighted the reasons why more boys are conceived when intercourse occurs on or around ovulation than in the days before. That certainly works for me personally - and I have seen many many women succeed with using those theories. However, you will still see stories contrary to the 'rule' as nature will often defy science in my experience at least!

LisaL I believe your partners sperm would have been gorgeously fresh and ready to swim! I really really hope that those sperm have met their friend the ovum and soon we will hear of your bfp! It will be interesting to see if the boy theory pans out in this case too!

Kate, we could run our own little study! Only another 9-11 weeks and we'll know if you 'fit' with the theory! If so you'll have a 'pidgeon pair'!

Hugs to you and I hope you are enjoying your pregnancy

Hi gals,

I mean Sunday morning (Saturday midnight)... whooo hooo looks like spermies may have got there. Its the first month I used OPK's, and I had a really dark line on Saturday and I had extreme O pains on the Sunday.

Lets see if I get the bfp then we can theorise on the sex of the baby.

Thanks lovelies

I am hoping for you Lisa. That's the good thing about opk's (I think) you get a really good indicator of when ovulation is about to happen. The rule of thumb is that you will ovulate within 12-36 hours from when you see a positive.
So, in another 7 days we'll know hey! I'll know by then too so wouldn't it be nice to be belly buddies! However I don't like my chances this month with late ovulation and not a fabulous progesterone level ... Miracles happen!

Best of luck, Lisa! DH and I dtd on the Saturday and the Sunday, current thinking is that O-day was that weekend, so we'll see what we get! Although I don't know the quality of DH's swimmers as they were almost a week old on the Saturday, but then they live in men longer than in women, as they're made in the chappy! (BTW, if anyone is interested in the "life cycle of a sperm" let me know, I'm sad enough to know it!)

Praying for a miracle for you and me both Deb!
Thanks Ryn - hope your right!!

Sick! You're not sick - just interesting! :) I say that because I spend a great deal of my life talking about these things and if I implicate you I do the same for me!!!!
I think you should post your life cycle of sperm. I think all of us in here are *sick* enough to read it with zest!:eek:

Yes Ryn I want to hear it tooo...pls share - deep down we are all interested in all the little details, we know all about us and our bodies Id love to hear about the little spermies.

OK, for people who want to know this! (Spermatozoon/spermatozoan is a single sperm, spermatozoa is for more than one sperm, that’s why the singular and plural for “sperm” is the same, it’s an abbreviation.)

The making of the sperm takes a full three months – although this is a continual process, not a batch process as some would have you believe (my DH is such a wuss!). Sperm start out as germ cells in the testes, these cells are diploid, meaning that they have two copies of each chromosome, like normal cells. There are layers to these germ cells and they divide all the time, creating copies of themselves (mitosis), replenishing the top layer (sort of like skin – a continual layer at the bottom replenishing the stuff at the top). When the cells reach the top layer, they undergo meiosis, a way to split a cell into four new cells, each containing half of the genetic material.

These cells are still not sperm as we know them. They hang around in the seminiferous tubules just after they have been made, waiting to pass into the epididimus. Rather cleverly, these cells are now classed as “foreign” to the male body, so sperm can’t go on a rampage inside a chap.

Into the epididimus; this is basically where the sperm get their little fast cars. Before, they couldn’t move around, now, they get loaded up with the tail, the mitochondria (the little engines) and the enzymes (destructo-rams) to beat their way into the egg. The nucleus, containing all the genes, hasn’t changed much, but it can now move, power itself and get into an egg. This is where they start to die too – whilst abstaining from sex, the sperm in the epididimus can be re-absorbed into the body and removed in the urine – so very good the sperm are “foreign bodies” to the male now!

Once the sperm leaves the male and enters the female (I’m sure we all know how that happens!) the sperm get to work. Usually, about 60% head straight back out again, leading to the “wet patch” (men never ask for directions…) but of the remaining 40%, they head upwards. There’s a choice of left or right, and so only 20% of the sperm released make it to the ripening ovary/released ovum. However, all this running around takes energy, and the more energy used, the more decrepit the sperm. Even sitting around in the epididimus takes energy, once the mitochondria are added they don’t stop working! Or devouring the sperm’s resources. Y sperm have more mitochondria, so they’re faster and get to the egg first (if they don’t go the wrong way), but die faster. X sperm are slower, but survive longer. In EWCM, the sperm don’t have to work so hard to swim around so last longer than without, when they’re pretty worn out by the time they make it to the ovary and only last a day or so longer. In EWCM, sperm can live for up to 5 days, but that is in absolutely optimal conditions!

Once the egg is released, the sperm “charge” it. They release the enzymes at the front of the sperm to batter the egg and bash their way in. Once a sperm has entered, it sets off a chemical chain reaction to make the egg impenetrable by other sperm – the biochemical equivalent of marking territory. This is very, very quick – almost instantaneous – but it is not unheard of that a second sperm can penetrate the egg. This is, however, very rare.

Well done! Fertilisation has occurred! HTH and if I made any huge errors or left anything major out please let me know, but that's a sperm's life, as I understand it.

Thanks Ryn, well written! I was going to copy and paste an article one of our clinicians wrote - not as easily understood as yours.
Don't you think nature is just amazing???
Have a good day...

Thanks Ryn! We know so much about our eggies and bodies and how it all works, it's nice to know how the spermies work! BTW HOW do you know all of that? Did you copy it out? Surely it's not all in your head...............? LOL!!!

Wow, thanks Ryn. Very interesting. What happens if two spermies get into the egg? I know it's rare, but I'm curious.

Fascinating Ryn!
We conceived our daughter 5 days before O so I guess I had 'optimal conditions'!! LOL!

I confess, I did have to look up how to spell "seminiferous tubules". But my degree is in medical genetics, so we did a lot of genetics, cells, and gamete formation stuff. I also looked at going into genetic counselling and found all this sort of stuff interesting, so did lots of reading.

With two spermies in the eggie, there's three lots of nuclear information, not two... this usually means that the egg won't divide, or will die out early on from "too much information" - also, as the paternal genes make the placenta and the female genes make the baby, all the fighting over "what to build" means there's more resources taken for the placenta than the baby, so the poor baby often fails to grow, if the egg ever manages to divide and implant.

Sometimes the egg can just throw out the extra information, and you wouldn't know anything had happened. But that's just as rare as 2 sperm getting into the egg.

Oh, and thinking on it, I think 50-60% swimming back out is normal, not 60%. I know more than 70% is a bad sign.

Thanks again Ryn, that's way more information than I ever received in HS biology LOL

Genetic counselling would have been a really interesting career. I had to go to GC and have some tests done, and the info they provided was really interesting, even though it could have been bad news (it wasn't BTW). I was always fascinated by that stuff back in HS.