This country is facing an urgent shortage of semen

Lots of cute Corona babies were visualized during lockdown, but not everyone is having fun between the sheets means having babies. Swedish husbands and dependent women are under more stress than usual these days. Doctors have warned that the Scandinavian country suffers from a real shortage of sperm (donors) due to the Corona crisis.

Swedish doctors are sounding the alarm that the semen supply at their fertility clinics is clearly diminishing. According to department head Anne Thoren-Keelberg of the University Hospital in Gothenburg, both the latter city and Malmö are already on dry seeds, as it appears at the National Ports Agency. An end to the sperm flood also looms in Stockholm. The biggest culprit is the epidemic, which keeps sperm donors at home in large numbers – away from fertility clinics. In addition, Swedish law stipulates that donated sperm can be used for up to six women, which means that the reserves cannot be used in full.

Lack of white matter means that waiting times for IVF increase significantly. In the past year, women have had to wait an average of at least thirty months to get adequate sperm. The average wait time for the Corona crisis was around six months.

White gold

Of course there is always a solution: money. Anyone who visits a private Swedish clinic as a husband or woman has access to semen that is purchased on the foreign market. To get a jar of international semen, you have to dig deep into your pockets: up to 100,000 SEK (about 10,000 euros). And the money bag is not the same for everyone. Assisted reproduction is free of charge in the Swedish (public) health system, but sperms must be available.

Thurin-Kjellberg believes that everything can be done to solve the shortage of sperm donors. At the moment, some Swedish regions are inviting men to register via social media, but this is not successful everywhere. Thoren Kjellberg calls for a TV call to get the men to report.

Even if the calls convince the men to ejaculate for a good reason, new semen is not immediately available. Donors are tested first and not all semen samples can be used. The whole process takes about 8 months.