At Bangalore’s famous sperm bank, demand far exceeds supply. The thirteen-year-old Cryo Bank in Jayanagar has been approached by childless couples from politicians to scientists, film stars and CEOs of big companies, all of whom have one objective. A child to complete the picture of domestic bliss.
Cryo Bank officials say these couples insist that their offspring comes from the finest gene pool available. The qualities they seek are: fair complexion, good looks and intelligence. As a result the sperm bank will not accept samples unless the donor has a post graduate degree. “No PUC or under graduate students,” they say.
China made international headlines with similar criteria. The Chinese apparently preferred ‘smart sperm’ of people who had done their MA degree to ‘run-of-the-mill sperm,’ of illiterates.
Ahlada Rao, who is the administrator at Cryo Bank, blames customers for these standards. “Ambitious parents only want children who are fair, handsome, intelligent and qualified.”
The interview process for a donor is exhaustive. He is tested for cancer, jaundice, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. His family history is scrutinised to determine genetically transmitted disease, but the data is entirely based on the honesty of the donor. If the donor is unaware of his family history, he is asked to find out. According to Rao, some donors back out at this stage because they don’t want to alert their parents to the fact that they are donating sperm.
Rao adds that a donor has to return in three months because, “If the donor is infected with AIDS, we come to know only after 3 months. Sperm count should be 60-80 million per ejaculate. We check freezability. Some sperm do not survive freezing in liquid nitrogen at -182C.”
Cryogenically frozen sperm can be stored for several years. Rao says, “It can last up to 18 years in specially designed cryogenic containers. How long the sperm lasts depends on the type of container used. It can even be one minute.”
The bank only accepts donors between 20 and 35 to ensure quality of the sperm. “The good thing is that once a person becomes a donor, he stays away from indiscriminate sex. Because if he doesn’t, it shows in the semen test. We tell him to stop it. We need quality in every sense of the term,” said Rao.
According to him, two factors restrain young men collecting the Rs 130 the bank pays per ejaculate. “Some youngsters don’t come because they are worried about what their friends and parents will say. Others simply don’t know of our existence. The problem is that doctors are prohibited from advertising.”
Before Cryo Bank regularised sperm donation, getting artificially inseminated was haphazard and risky in Bangalore. Rao explained, “Impotent men would put the onus of conception on the doctor. ‘Do what you can, but make my wife a mother’. The doctor would either inject his own semen into the woman’s womb (with or without her knowledge) or take any ward boy’s semen to meet his client’s demand.” He laughed as he recalled, “Husbands would quote the Mahabharata to the doctor and ask him to help them. Did you know that in the Mahabharata, the Pandavas were born out of a Muni’s (Veda Vyas) semen?” Rao added that very often the wife was unaware of what was going on. “Some husbands trick their brothers into donating semen… just to maintain genetic ‘characteristics’ within the family.”
Today, Cryo Bank has changed all that. “We don’t sell semen samples without a doctor’s prescription,” says Rao. Gynaecologists and urologists recommend patients to the sperm bank. “We don’t want to get into any medico-legal hassles. Our responsibility ends with the delivery of the semen sample.”
Once the sample is handed over to the client, it is usually taken to a nursing home or hospital, where the ovulating woman is awaiting insemination. Once the sperm is thawed, the doctor has about half an hour to complete the procedure.
According to World Health Organisation (WHO), about 20% of the world’s population is infertile. Sperm count that stood at 120-130 million per ejaculate 50 years ago, now stands at 60-70 million. Scientists say this is due to pollution, alcoholism, sexual over-indulgence and venereal disease. WHO claims that traffic policemen showed a significant decline in sperm count because they were most exposed to air pollution.
Started in April 1996 by Dr Veena Rao (Ahlada Rao’s wife), a biochemist and microbiologist and Bhashini Rao, a reproductive physiologist, Cryo Bank has to date, sold over 13,000 semen samples. However, success doesn’t always come at the first try. Sometimes, it takes 6 or seven attempts. “Sometimes, people get fed up and stop coming for more semen samples,” said Rao. “It’s like lottery. If you’re lucky, you hit the jackpot the very first time itself. And this has happened in 1% of the cases that have come to us.”
Chances of artificial conception stand at about 20% “as is the case with natural conception,” explained Rao. He extrapolated that approximately 600 couples in Bangalore had successfully produced children, directly as a result of Cryo bank.
The bank sends samples all over South India to Nagarcoil, Thirunelvelli, Trichy, Madurai, Trichur, Karnool, Hyderabad, Warangal, Mysore and Madras among others. Rao presently has a dozen such sub centres and expects the figure to go up to 150 in the next 10 years. Impressed by the demand, Dr Veena Rao opened one more centre in Thane (Mumbai) recently.
But in Bangalore, the bank is woefully short of semen samples. Donors stand at a meagre 50 when there are currently 200 couples waiting to become parents. Rao would love to have some of the city’s luminaries on his donor list. “Our ultimate aim is to get the leading lights of Bangalore to fulfil the needs of an ambitious society.”
But Rao is apprehensive about the future. “Given the nature of human destiny, what if some children turn out to be mongoloid from the semen we have sold? No matter how quality-conscious you are, these things can never be ruled out. If something like that happens, how can we protect ourselves?”
Rao is trying to get insurance cover for his business, “But sperm banks are a new phenomenon in India. Insurance companies are saying they will look into it.”
The Cryo Bank is located at #1872, 11th Main, 38th ‘A’ Cross, 4th ‘T’ Block, Jayanagar. Phone: 2664-0719 or 2664-0131.