Can he or can't he? Ethical minefield as Boots sell Britain's first instant male fertility tests

£30 kits can test a man's sperm count in ten minutes

It is 98 per cent accurate and shows a 'normal' or 'low' sperm count

Sex therapist Michelle Bassam warned it could provoke a row

Britain's first DIY male fertility test appears in shops this weekend enabling men – and women – to do sperm count checks at home.



Experts hope the £30 kits will help more people recognise that male infertility is a major reason why many couples have trouble conceiving naturally.



But sex therapists believe they could also cause serious friction in a relationship – with girlfriends and wives even secretly testing their men to see if they are potent or not.

Designed to look like a pregnancy test, the SpermCheck takes ten minutes to show if a man has a ‘normal’ or ‘low’ sperm count.



The kit is 98 per cent accurate at determining if a man has 20 million sperm or more per millilitre (the World Health Organisation benchmark), which nine in ten men do.



That is as good as a lab test, according to its makers. But specialists point out there is nothing in the test to check how healthy the sperm are.



Having a sperm count lower than 20 million/ml does not mean a man cannot have children naturally but it does mean he is likely to be sub-fertile, affecting his chances of doing so. The makers of the test recommend that men who find they have a low sperm count consult their doctors.

SpermCheck chief executive Ray Lopez said: ‘With this test we can truly help couples suffering from infertility.



‘A lot of the time, the woman is the one who is burdened with finding out what is wrong, but the reality of the situation is that in 40 to 60 per cent of cases, male factor infertility is to blame.’



Sex therapist Michelle Bassam welcomed Boots’ decision to stock the US-designed kits, which will be placed next to pregnancy and ovulation tests.

But she also wondered how many men would actually buy them.

She said: ‘I personally think that it will be more the woman who goes out to buy it than the man.’



She warned a woman could easily provoke a row simply by coming home with a kit and suggesting her man test himself.



‘It could certainly cause friction in a relationship,’ she said.



‘Male infertility is still a taboo subject. Once a man finds out he is infertile, he feels emasculated.’



And she added: ‘A woman could also secretly perform the test.



‘If she is considering having a child with a man once she is married, she could use it to test him out beforehand.’

The test: It works by looking for a protein called SP-10 which is present only on the heads of mature sperm, and semen can be tested up to three hours after collection

That raises the possibility of women dumping their men on the basis of a ten-minute test.



A low sperm count result could also prompt men to sleep around to prove their masculinity, Ms Bassam said.



However, Ms Bassam of Harley Therapy in London, agreed that the easy availability of the test would help dispel the ‘stigma’ of male infertility.



The test works by looking for a protein called SP-10 which is present only on the heads of mature sperm, and semen can be tested up to three hours after collection.



Results might not even be seriously affected if the semen is collected from a condom, which contains sperm-killing chemicals.



Alison Campbell, head of embryology at Care Fertility, one of Britain’s biggest IVF clinics, said one of the flaws was that the test would still count dead sperm. So a man could have a normal sperm count but would never father a baby if they were all defective.



‘There’s some possibility of that, where a woman says, “This is my perfect mate, but I better find out if he is fertile or not,”

- SpermCheck chief executive Ray Lopez

Sperm needed to be able to move and have the right shape to fertilise an egg, she explained, and this was something which could only be confirmed by a full semen analysis. ‘There’s no alternative to seeing a professional,’ she said.



The test was very crude, she added, as it gave no indication of whether a man’s sperm count was close to 20 million per millilitre or zero. Mr Lopez admitted women could use the test to check if their partners really were mating material.



‘There’s some possibility of that, where a woman says, “This is my perfect mate, but I better find out if he is fertile or not,” he said.



‘But if you’ve got a man who has a low sperm count, that doesn’t mean he can’t father a child.’



Men can raise their sperm count by eating a healthy diet, exercising, losing weight, avoiding hot baths and swapping tight underwear for looser boxer shorts, say experts.



For those with more serious fertility problems, a range of solutions exist, including artificial insemination, which costs about £1,000, and IVF, where healthy sperm are collected and put in a dish to fertilise an egg. Each cycle costs about £4,000.



And for men with blocked tubes, doctors can even ‘fish’ sperm directly out of their testes.

Why tinker with serendipity? Buy him Calvin Klein boxer shorts, pretend to understand everything Gary Lineker says and leave it to fate, says Liz Jones

Will men bother with a fertility test? I doubt they care enough. I doubt they will bother to go into a Boots, because men never go into Boots unless forced upon point of death.

They would look at the price tag and exclaim that £30 is far too expensive. It’s not that they never doubt whether or not they can father a child, but that they prefer to leave it to chance. Unlike women.

I imagine it is wannabe mums, hovering around 40, who will buy this damn thing, and use it as yet another cosh to hit men with. As well as selecting a suitable mate by examining his bank account, teeth, inside of his car (I have a friend who dumped a man for having sweet wrappers in the foot-well), CV, wardrobe, and his parents, women will now be able to count not only his pairs of socks that match, but his sperm.



"Let sleeping dogs lie. Don’t use his snoring as your cue to steal his sperm and weigh up your options."



- Liz Jones

I imagine women will do this surreptitiously by stealing his sperm post-coital because most men, faced with a gimlet-eyed fortysomething female brandishing this little device, will react like a vampire approached with a cross, or daylight.

There are no guarantees in life. If you can both make another human being, you are blessed and lucky. Why tinker with serendipity? If you are having trouble conceiving, and are desperate, you should both decide to consult an expert.

This sort of DIY weeding out of weedy men is a new way to emasculate them, along with making them wee sitting down, brushing their tongues and ironing their hankies.

My advice? Buy him a pair of baggy Calvin Klein boxer shorts, pretend to understand everything that comes out of Gary Lineker’s mouth, and leave it to fate. Apparently – and this fact made me laugh out loud – telling your partner he has a low sperm count will encourage him to sleep around: you have to hand it to the unreconstructed dears for their optimism.

Women, of course, finding out their man cannot act as a stud for a future dreadful brood will become hysterical and accusing. No one wins from the above scenario.