Vasectomy sieves sperm NOT Semen

By Meluse Kapatamoyo

When i raised the issue of Vasectomy as an alternative family planning measure, i got emails from men who said they would never consider this simple but effective operation. Reasons cited were: loss of libido, interference when urinating, lack of sexual satisfaction etc.

So i asked Dr Mulindi Mwanahamuntu, a gynaecology consultant at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH), to hopefuly put the minds of our men at ease.

This is what the doctor had to say;

"All these questions are because people confuse or do not understand the difference between sperm and semen. Sperms are small cells that can't be seen by the naked eye but contain DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) that when lodged into an egg, a baby is formed. Semen on the other hand is the fluid or whitish liquid that comes mainly from the prostrate. This fluid is confused with sperms.

Even men who do not have sperms or who have dead or malformed impotent sperms do release this fluid since it is released during climax. Vasectomy does not disturb this fluid called semen. Vasectomy only closes the tubes that bring sperm to be carried by  the semen.

Think of it like this: A river is the semen, some dirt, silt or small branches of trees in the river water is the sperm. If you put a wire mesh to remove or sieve out the dirt, branches or some stony silt, does the river stop flowing? Not at all. But only crops down the river will suffer because the silt which fertilizes them has been removed. When a man is vasectomized, the only thing that suffers is the egg in the womb because the cell (sperm) is not there to fertilize!" PYM