Increase Your Sperm Count

You may be able to increase sperm count by seeking professional medical advice and following a prescribed treatment. When you are trying to have children, the number of sperm you ejaculate is quite important, as is their condition. To be able to fertilize an egg, a large amount of sperm is required, in the many hundreds of millions. While the average man can produce this many sperm multiple times per day, there are external factors that can adversely affect sperm count. Things such as smoking, drug usage, poor diet and lack of exercise can all decrease sperm count. Increasing the volume of your sperm, increases your fertility by increasing the number of sperm that are produced during each ejaculation.  View our tips for healthy lifestyle choices and take our online self-test about male infertility.

Sperm Analysis

Defining a person's sperm count is a complex process. There are a number of measurements that are considered in semen analysis. First, a physician will look at the concentration -- how many sperm there are per cc or milliliter of semen (the fluid). Next, we need to know how many cc of semen are present. So a count of 40 million sperm per cc with only 1cc of fluid may not be as good as a count with 18 million and 4cc. We like to see more than 20 million sperm per cc and 2-5cc of semen. Another measurement to consider is what percentage of the sperm is moving forward progressively; 50 percent motility is considered normal. The next factor is sperm morphology which determines what percentage of sperm look normal. When you assess the fertilizing potential of a given specimen, you must consider all these factors. Thus, a slight abnormality in sperm count may be compensated for by better motility or an increase in volume.

We find that delaying ejaculation may increase the total concentration of sperm and perhaps the volume of semen. However, the percentage of normal sperm and the percentage of motile sperm decrease with infrequent ejaculation.