Investigation of motivations for depositing sperm during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ABSTRACT

People are becoming parents later in life and with increased parental age adverse reproductive outcomes are increased. Cryopreservation of gametes enables men and women to protect, prolong and seemingly preserve their fertility. Social freezing is an increasingly popular way of cryopreservation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the gamete bank Cryos International experienced an increased influx of men wanting to deposit their sperm. A questionnaire-based study was initiated to investigate their motivations for doing so. The results showed that the men chose to deposit mainly due to medical indications (e.g. cancer and sex change), and that the COVID-19 pandemic had no significant influence on the reason for banking their sperm. Investigations into the altruistic reasons for depositing sperm (i.e. caring for reproductive masculinity) could shed new light onto the sparsely studied topic of male reproductive journeys.