New app allows IVF patients to see growing embryos

New app allows IVF patients to see growing embryos

CALL it the equivalent of Tinder in the world of sperm donation.

Increasing numbers of men and women are stepping away from formal clinical sperm donor settings and connecting sperm donors with recipients online.

And a world-first study of what motivates men to donate their sperm to women they meet online has revealed those who do so are donating more often, with more babies the result.

Researchers found that this less clinical method of donation provides both donor and recipient with more information, allowing for better communication between the two parties.

The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) study into online sperm donor behaviour looked into what men weighed up before they decided to donate online.

They found many men were not concerned about the views of their family and friends before making the decision to donate.

And it revealed both donors and recipients are increasing in number — talking advantage of websites like UK-based PrideAngel and Gold Coast-based FSDW (Free Sperm Donations Worldwide) to take control of the process.

“Since IVF started about four decades ago there has been a global shortage of men going to clinical setting to donate sperm,” said QUT behavioural economist Stephen Whyte, one of the authors of the “Online sperm donors: The impact of family, friends, personality and risk perception on behaviour” study.

“About a decade ago the internet really got going and became a conduit for people to step away from clinical settings to find informal donors. Essentially, people are finding their sperm donors themselves — and the donors are finding them.

He said sites like PrideAngel, on which the QUT study was based, had been embraced because they mean donors and women are no longer bound by logistic or national boundaries, or cultural, social, financial or even sexuality-based barriers that may have excluded them from the process in the past.

“Connection websites are providing a setting in which men and women can communicate directly and reduce financial burdens. They also allow the men and women involved to freely negotiate their preferred donation and parenting arrangements.”

He says it’s a natural progression given the rise and rise of the internet.

“Online dating, dating apps, social media and the wider internet are now socially acceptable global platforms for meeting a partner,” he said.

“The same can also be said about connection websites for women seeking sperm donors.

“We assume both women and donors maybe appreciate there is more information available in the online setting.

“In a clinical setting you don’t get to interact with your donor and the donor doesn’t get to interact with whoever selects their sperm.

“Online, both parties know more about each other before the donation, and negotiate any sort of arrangement themselves as a collective for what happens before, and after the donation.

“It’s direct contact. There’s no intermediary like there is in a clinical setting.”

The study found that men already donating via online arrangements, who had previously donated sperm in formal clinical settings, were donating sperm to more women, and as a result had more children.

He said PrideAngel’s global network had more than 40,000 registered participants, and 7500 of them are donors, and as women continue to “push back” fertility, those numbers will only grow.

“I don't think it’s a matter of whether online sperm donation will become normalised, I think to a large extent it is already,” he said.

“The way modern society is structured, more women are pushing back their fertility, and if that continues to happen, these sorts of options are going to become more prevalent.

Mr Whyte said that understanding the motivations of informal donors was critical in providing effective policy, equitable legislative frameworks, and frontline health and psychological support.