What is the life expectancy of a sperm after ejaculation?

By 26/03/2021 portal-3

¿Cuál es la esperanza de vida de un espermatozoide después de la eyaculación?

One of the most widespread urban legends around the world of public swimming pools is, along with the fact that if you pee a chemical product diluted in the water changes color and gives you away to others, that If you ejaculate in the water, it is possible to get a girl who splashes nearby pregnant.. Don't worry: you can urinate and ejaculate in a public pool without any of those worries (although of course it's better that you don't do it for everyone's sake).

And semen, for those who do not want to get pregnant, It turns out something like a substance contaminated by radioactivity. There are women who can't even tolerate it rubbing against their skin: what if, by mistake, it ends up entering the vagina? What if there are jumping sperm?

To take away some of the fear about semen, well, it is worth knowing how long is a sperm capable of surviving when it leaves our body in the race of life (being very euphemistic).

Sperm do not get along very well with vaginas

Ironically, sperm don't get along very well with vaginas. More than 99 % of sperm in ejaculate They die in the vagina before reaching the fallopian tubes., given the acidic environment of the vagina. Therefore, a man who has less than 20 million sperm per ejaculation is considered infertile.

After entering the woman's body, the sperm usually remains fertile between 48 and 72 hours, but only in ideal conditions, that is, during the days of ovulation, which is when the vaginal pH is above 6, which is the pH during the rest of the days (the degree of acidity of the ideal environment for a sperm is 7-7, 5, and the temperature: between 37 ºC and 37.5 ºC.)

There are other factors that could influence the fate of the sperm. The work carried out by British researchers Robin Baker and Mark A. Bellis, although not yet conclusive, suggest that orgasm offers women a way to control male sperm. If there is an orgasm, more sperm is attracted. If there is not, it is repelled to some extent. If the orgasm occurs under the circumstances of infidelity, then the orgasm produces a greater number of contractions to attract a greater flow of sperm: why else would you run the risk of maintaining an extramarital relationship? Something like the effect of unblockers on drains. The cervix literally sucks.

If we ejaculate outside the vagina, the life expectancy of the sperm is very short. Depending on humidity and temperature, They can last only minutes. How long it takes for the seminal fluid to dry, which is where the sperm can survive.

By the way, spermatozoa were first distinguished in 1679 by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, inventor of the first powerful microscopes.

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The news

What is the life expectancy of a sperm after ejaculation?

was originally published in

Xataka Science

by
Sergio Parra

.