Small sperm heads

If you were recently told by your doctor that you have abnormal sperm morphology, you probably have more questions than answers: What exactly does this mean? How does this affect my fertility? What can I do about it? Morphology refers to the shape of your sperm, or what it looks like under a microscope. Specifically, it looks at the shape of the sperm head and the size of the sperm. Read on to learn more about sperm morphology and the impact it may have on your fertility.

Sperm morphology refers to the shape of the sperm, which includes head size and head DNA content revealed by a nuclear color stain , the midpiece appearance and the structure of the tail. Sperm morphology is assessed during routine semen analysis that examines the sperm cells under a microscope. The semen analysis will also examine the motility movement ability and concentration of sperm present. Every male, fertile or infertile, has varying percentages of abnormally-shaped sperm.

This measures many features of the sperm and semen the fluid in which the sperm are contained. The most important of these are the number of sperm sperm count , motility of the sperm percentage of moving sperm , morphology of the sperm percentage of normally shaped sperm , and the volume of fluid. To assess sperm morphology, the sperm are examined under a microscope and the percentage of abnormally shaped sperm is estimated. Sperm morphology is assessed using one of 2 sets of characteristics. Kruger criteria are strict and consider minute irregularities as abnormal.

Male fertility is evaluated via semen analysis. Abnormalities in shape make it more difficult for sperm to penetrate and fertilize an egg. Sperm morphology alone does not determine whether or not a man can father a child. In fact, a study done by Kovac et. Since many of the factors that can impair male fertility are fixable, sperm morphology can be improved without medications.