Donor Siblings: How Many is Too Many?

You may have heard in the news recently that there was a British man, Ben, who told his fiance he was a sperm donor.  She was stunned to find out he had fathered as many as 70 children.  That's not exactly the news you expect to hear from your fiance.  Another man in the news recently discovered he had fathered 150 children by being a sperm donor.

This brings up the question, how many sperm donor children are too many?

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When choosing a cryobank and a donor it is important to know if there is a limit on pregnancies or live births related to that donor.  One way to know is by using the sibling donor registry like the one California Cryobank has.  Almost all cryobank's have a donor registry.  I could talk more about sibling registries, but that's an entire post on it's own.

Most people outside of the infertility world believe that there are not controls over how many children a sperm donor can father.  It is stories like the two above that fuel that belief.

In the past there were no controls over how many live births there were.  But that has changed.  The fear of your child dating or marrying their sibling by accident is a common fear.  This is why so many cryobanks track live births and offer the sibling registry.

So I go back to my question...how many sperm donor children are too many?  One article I read talks about the concerns among parents and donors and the consequences of so many children being fathered by the same donor.  The concern was the possibility of genetic diseases being more widespread, and the potential of half siblings living too close to each other and dating.

The laws vary by country on the limit of how many live births there are for each sperm donor.  In the US it is 25 births per population of 850,000.  In Germany, it is 15 births.

It is important when you are choosing a cryobank and a donor to take into consideration how many live births there are for the donor you select.

If you ever have a question or concern about the number of births from the donor you are considering using, please be sure to contact your cryobank.