It has long been understood that the process of fertilization involves sperm swimming through the female reproductive system on their way to rendezvous with an egg, but there’s some new research out of the UK that explains how the trip is a bit more complicated than that, and that in addition to swimming to their destination, sperm may also crawl there.
The study comes out of the UK’s Warwick and Birmingham universities, and it’s helping us better understand the voyage sperm take through the cervix and uterus before reaching the ovum.
We already knew that the trip was hardly a straight line. Female reproduction contains a complicated system of twists and turns. What the researchers in this study found, though, was that the small percentage of sperm that make it to the ovum are those which are best at navigation, and those that know when to swim and when to “crawl” along the insides of the reproductive organs.
A quote from Dr. Jackson Kirkman-Brown, who helped perform the study, paints an interesting picture of how much more complex the journey is than previously thought. He states that, “I couldn’t resist a laugh the first time I saw sperm cells persistently swerving on tight turns and crashing head-on into the opposite wall of a micro-channel.”
While they swim around angles, though, sperm cells actually cling to the edges of narrower passages in a manner similar to crawling. At least, it seems, the successful ones do.
The hope of those who completed the study is that this information can be combined with previous knowledge regarding how the shape of the head of the sperm impacts the ability to travel , ultimately making existing fertility treatments more effective.
It also backs up information we already knew about the female side of the fertility equation – mainly that certain conditions like cysts and endometriosis can change the landscape of the reproductive anatomy and make it more difficult for sperm to reach and fertilize an egg.
The more we learn about reproduction, the better we can assist families who are affected by infertility, so studies like this are always exciting.
If you’ve personally experienced trouble getting pregnant, the board-certified obstetricians at Gainesville’s All About Women offer services related to conception, as well as diagnosis and assistance with certain specific fertility issues. We’d love the opportunity to help you get your family started, so give us a call today.