# Washed Sperm Lives 2-5 days and why is it pink??



## lurdes777

Hi Ladies,

many of you are questioning how long does the sperm live and most of the infomation out there is NOT accurate. I asked the person who is working in IVF lab for years and here is her anwer, I though I'd post it for all of you interested:

"Your question regarding sperm longevity seems simple but actually depends on many factors, including the initial viability (quality) of the sperm, how soon it is washed etc. Generally, however, you might expect sperm to live for hours post processing in the vial. I could find no studies that actually looked at this question directly. 

A fresh ejaculate goes through a gelatinous phase called coagulation. It usually lasts less than 30 minutes and then the sperm is released from this jelly like material. That's why a lab will wait 30 minutes or so and keep the specimen on a warmer or incubator to allow the coagulation phase to pass and sperm to liquefy again before beginning a semen analysis or processing a sample for insemination. The sperm is washed for insemination to remove seminal plasma which contains among other things, prostaglandins, which if injected into the uterus would cause painful contractions and in some women, allergic reactions. Processing (washing, centrifugation) may take another 30 to 60 minutes, so there is a built-in delay. None of these routine delays cause a problem for a normal sample. We did rarely see men whose sperm viability dropped off dramatically, but that was highly unusual. 

To test the sperm toxicity of new lots of plastic collection cups, we would do an experiment using high quality sperm from a donor to see how quickly sperm motility dropped off after incubation in the test cup and compared it to a previously tested sperm safe (control) cup. The test was done over 3 days and sperm motility in even the control would drop off by 50 % each day. If sperm motility dropped off more in the test sample than in the control sample, we would fail the new lot. What that means is that in a high quality sperm sample, you might expect some motility to persist even 24 hours later. The samples were held at body temperatures for the experiment. Cold temperatures can also impair motility. 

The bottom line is IF your husband's sample was a good sample to start with, it should be able to tolerate a few hours delay post-washing in IUI medium without any harm to your IUI. You might expect 50% of the motility to persist even by the next day. 

In the body, sperm can live for several days- 2-5 days is often given as a range- again we are assuming a normal sample. 

Washed sperm is pink because the washing medium contains phenol red, a pH indicator which tells us if the pH of the wash medium is where it should be. If the pH is not correct, it can indicate a spoiled wash medium. For instance, bacterial growth can change the pH of the medium to become more acidic and the color will change from reddish to yellow. "


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## hollyw79

Wow.. very interesting~ thanks for sharing! We had our sperm wash done @ one place and the IUI done at my doctor's which was 30 minutes away~ I was definitely worried about viability and such~ tried by best to keep it @ body temperature, etc... My doc said they all looked alive and swimming very well thankfully! Still waiting to see if it worked though! I am happy to see a normal 2-5 day range though instead of like 6 hours or something!


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## Mrs. V

Very interesting indeed !


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## AG75

Thanks for posting this, everything I'm reading online is saying washed sperm won't live as long once it's in there, compared to sperm that get up there through regular BD, but it doesn't really explain why.


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## LittleBird

Just want to bump this thread, found it when doing a google search on washed sperm.


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## educatingmom

I just wanted to say that!


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## Piper183

Thank you!


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