If you and your partner are trying to have a baby, you may have questions regarding your fertility. Some men may wonder if their semen volume influences their fertility. The short answer is: no, not necessarily.

Semen is the thick, white fluid that comes out of a man’s penis when he ejaculates. It contains sperm, which is the male reproductive cell, but sperm is not the only component in semen.

On average, men release between 1.5 to 5.0 milliliters of semen each time they ejaculate. However, sperm count per milliliter of semen can vary significantly among men. In fact, normal sperm counts range from 15 million to 200 million sperm per milliliter of semen.

According to Mayo Clinic, men are considered to have a low sperm count if they have fewer than 15 million sperm per milliliter of semen, or fewer than 39 million sperm per ejaculation. Therefore, some men may have a relatively low volume of ejaculate, but have a high sperm count, while others may have a high volume of ejaculate and a low sperm count.

When it comes to male fertility, a few other characteristics of a man’s sperm have been found to be important in addition to overall sperm count. Specifically, sperm motility (movement) and morphology (shape) play a role in a man’s fertility.

Sperm motility refers to a sperm’s ability to effectively move through the female reproductive tract to fertilize an egg. Normal sperm motility is characterized by forward progressions of the sperm, mostly in a straight line or in a large circle. Abnormal sperm motility may refer to sperm that move in tight circles or do not move at all.

It is normal to have some amount of immotile (non-moving) sperm in any ejaculate sample, but at least 40% of the sperm should be moving in a sample for a man to be considered fertile.

Sperm morphology refers to the size and shape of the sperm. Men with normal-shaped sperm tend to be more fertile than men with abnormally shaped sperm. Further research is necessary to determine if this is due to the shape of the sperm themselves, or a separate issue that may be causing both infertility and affecting the shape of the sperm.

In the end, if you and your partner are trying to conceive and a baby and you believe that you may be experiencing fertility issues, talk to your health care provider about completing a semen analysis. In this way, your health care team will be able to examine a sample of your semen to determine its sperm count, sperm motility, and sperm morphology, along with other important factors.

References:

• Bostofte, E., Serup, J., & Rebbe, H. (1982). Relation between sperm count and semen volume, and pregnancies obtained during a twenty‐year follow‐up period.International Journal of Andrology, 5(3), 267-275. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2605.1982.tb00255.x
  
  
• Mayo Clinic. (2022, December 17). Low sperm count. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/low-sperm-count/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20374591#