There is a site in Granada with more than 50,000 semen samples. We have been there

It all starts with an ad, with mouth to mouth or with a casual encounter. Then comes an email and a telephone interview. The first visit, three or four days of abstinence and a taco of informed consent. More things will come: an immediate test (volume, quantity, mobility …) and then a rosary of exams in a long process that will end several months later.

For that moment, Only 20% of those who started still in the process. Only now donations will begin.

This is how, today, many more children we think are made.

38,644

Assisted reproduction is already behind 12% of births that occur in Spain and that means that Only last year almost 40,000 children were born with the help of this set of reproductive technologies. And, although it is true that not everyone requires donor sperm, current donations barely do not cover demand.

And with the average age of the first and older child, all experts agree that he will go more.

Semen donations are just a small part of the process, but a very unknown. That is why we have traveled to the heart of Granada, which is possibly The largest semen bank in Spain: Gametia Biobank.

What is really a semen bank?

Louise Brown was born on July 25, 1978. He was the first person born through in vitro fertilization and, without being aware of it, put everything we thought we knew about having a child. Not 15 years later, José Antonio Castillaa reference in the world of reproductive medicine was founding in Granada Ceifer, one of the most important semen banks in the country.

For decades, Ceifer was creating a donation culture (In a strongly university context) that has allowed him to lead the sector for years. Now, integrated into the group Next Clinics (And under the brand of Gametia Biobank, since 2022) they remain in it.

Not in vain, 23,096 of the 56,700 samples registered in Spain (41%) between 2018 and 2023 come from there. Of course, the figures are true, but they have some trick: Gametia was for a long time one of the few centers that scored the data in the National Registry and has been a pioneer in its implementation. In spite of everything, the weight of Gametia at the national level is much greater than the demographic weight of a city like Granada could be presumed

How have they achieved it?

As Carlos Zafrilla, director of Operations of Gametia explained to us, thanks to “that tradition (which has become) into one of the main banks of the bank.” Although it is true that each session/donation is compensated with 50 euros (And the legal limit is about 40), the inconveniences of being a donor – with the long periods of sexual and other abstinence – make it difficult to understand it as a way of “earning money.” Nor is it fast, nor is it simple, nor is it so comfortable as I might think.

From Gametia they insist, in fact, on personal commitment commitment. In the end, hidden after the anonymity that the law guarantees them, these donors are one of the least visible pieces of a process (that of in vitro fertilization) that are usually long, complex and full wear for families.

And being a donor requires sexual abstinence, not consuming substances for long periods, carrying strict health control. Things that can be uncomfortable For a young population in a city with more than 80,000 university students.

A melody sounds.

El Biobanco, a place with a warm and very pleasant aesthetic that Away from the cliché inherited from North American filmsit has two rooms with chairs, sinks and televisions to perform donations. As soon as donors use a button and a melody sounds. It is a key piece to guarantee the traceability of the material.

Once the sample is collected, it is purified and concentrated, it is sealed in 0.5 ml straws (with a unique code) and freezing immersing them in liquid nitrogen at -196ºC.

In the heart of the center there are at least 35 tanks that store an average of 1900 straws Each unoy guarantees the safety of a material that must be preserved even if it is discarded.

Then the Gametia team matches donors and receivers. Despite the precancevid idea, this pairing is strictly regulated by law and There is no “donation to the letter”. And once selected, they travel in portable cryogenic containers to the nearly 400 hospitals and clinics throughout Europe.

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