Sweden faces an acute shortage of sperm for assisted pregnancy, as potential donors avoid hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic, stop inseminations in large parts of the healthcare system and increase waiting years.
“We are running out of sperm. We have never had as few donors as in the last year,” said Ann Thurin Kjellberg, head of the reproduction unit at Gothenburg University Hospital.
The shortage has meant that waiting times for assisted pregnancy have increased from the estimated six months to the estimated 30 months over the past year, possibly more, doctors familiar with the matter told Reuters.
“It’s stressful that we can’t get a clear time or date for treatment,” said Elin Bergsten, a 28-year-old math teacher from southern Sweden.
Two years ago, Bergsten and her husband learned she was unable to produce semen and the couple immediately requested the assisted pregnancy. She had to have her second insemination cycle before treatment was delayed indefinitely due to scarcity.
“It’s a national phenomenon,” Thurin Kjellberg said. “We have run out in Gothenburg and Malmö, they will soon run out in Stockholm,” he added, calling the three most populous areas in the country.
Beyond public health care providers, there are also private clinics in Sweden that can circumvent the shortage by buying sperm from abroad.
But assisted pregnancy treatment often costs up to 100,000 Swedish kronor ($ 11,785), making it unaffordable for many. Assisted pregnancy is free at the Swedish National Health Service.
According to the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, the Nordic countries and Belgium have the highest assisted conception rates in the world in terms of cycle availability per million population.
Under Swedish law, a sample of sperm can only be used by a maximum of 6 women. Most sperm donated in Sweden have achieved this legal capacity, meaning that in many areas assisted pregnancy is only available to women who have previously used a specific sperm sample.
Margareta Kitlinski, who heads the reproduction unit at Skane University Hospital, the largest clinic of its kind in Sweden, said it takes about 8 months to process a donor due to the numerous tests involved and that many samples do not become viable donations due to common problems. in freezing.
“If you have 50 men in touch with you, at best only half of them could be donors,” Kitlinski said.
Some regions of Sweden have gone on social media to encourage potential male donors, but with varying results. Meanwhile, the shortage persists.
“We have to go on TV and tell Swedish men to move on,” Thurin Kjellberg said.
(1 $ = 8.4850 Swedish kronor)
Our standards: the principles of trust of Thomson Reuters.