Beautiful Virgin Islands

Wednesday, Oct 08, 2025

"We're Running Out Of Sperm": Swedish Clinic Search For Donors

"We're Running Out Of Sperm": Swedish Clinic Search For Donors

Sweden is facing an acute shortage of sperm for assisted pregnancy as would-be donors avoid hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic, halting inseminations in large parts of the healthcare system and driving up waiting times by years.
Sweden is facing an acute shortage of sperm for assisted pregnancy as would-be donors avoid hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic, halting inseminations in large parts of the healthcare system and driving up waiting times by years.

"We're running out of sperm. We've never had so few donors as during the last year," said Ann Thurin Kjellberg, head of the reproduction unit at Gothenburg's University Hospital.

The shortage has meant waiting times for assisted pregnancy have shot up from around six months to an estimated 30 months in the past year, possibly longer, doctors familiar with the matter told Reuters.

"It's stressful that we can't get a clear time or date for treatment," said Elin Bergsten, a 28-year-old maths teacher from southern Sweden.

Two years ago, Bergsten and her husband learned he was unable to produce semen, and the pair immediately applied for assisted pregnancy. She was due to have her second cycle of insemination before her treatment was indefinitely delayed due to the shortage.

"It's a national phenomenon," Thurin Kjellberg said. "We've run out in Gothenburg and Malmo, they will soon run out in Stockholm," she added, naming the three most populous areas of the country.

Beyond public healthcare providers, there are also private clinics in Sweden which are able to circumvent shortages by buying sperm from abroad.

But assisted pregnancy treatment there often costs as much as 100,000 Swedish crowns ($11,785), making it unaffordable for many. Assisted pregnancy is free within Sweden's national health service.

The Nordic countries and Belgium have the highest assisted conception rates in the world, in terms of availability of cycles per million of population, according to the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.

Under Swedish law, a sperm sample can only be used by a maximum of 6 women. Most donated sperm in Sweden has reached this legal capacity, meaning that in many areas, assisted pregnancy is only available for women who have used a specific sperm sample before.

Margareta Kitlinski, who runs the reproduction unit at Skane University Hospital, the largest such clinic in Sweden, said it takes around 8 months to process a donor due to the many tests involved, and that many samples fail to become viable donations due to common problems in freezing.

"If you have 50 men contact you, at best only half of them could be donors," Kitlinski said.

Some Swedish regions have taken to social media to encourage potential male donors, but with varying results. In the meantime, the shortage lingers.

"We need to go on TV and tell Swedish men to come forward," Thurin Kjellberg said.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×