DEEP FREEZE: Artificial insemination can preserve the seeds of your future children

The courier boy looks like he?s off to a picnic, as he slings on an Eagle flask and sets off to drop a delivery. But the flask he?s carrying does not carry his mid-morning cup of tea. It?s filled with liquid nitrogen instead, stored at a temperature of minus 196-degree Celsius. The delivery has been dispatched from Bangalore?s Cryo Bank Fertility Research Centre. A centimetre-long, sealed plastic bottle swims in the liquid nitrogen. The bottle contains the frozen sperm sample of a city-based software engineer. The IT professional is currently working on a six-month project in the US. The sperm sample is to be artificially inseminated into his wife, who recently returned from a two-month work stint in Germany.

The techie couple had been planning a child for long. But work always came in the way. One of them would invariably be travelling during the wife?s fertile days. That?s when cryo preservation came to their help. The couple approached the Cryo Centre, where the software engineer?s sperm sample was screened, tested and safely stored in liquid nitrogen. He left for the US with pleasant thoughts of being welcomed by a pregnant wife when he got back home.

These days, it takes three to tango ? the man, the woman and the sperm bank. Bhashini Rao, director, Cryo Bank Fertility Research Centre, claims that every year, the bank gets 150 clients seeking sperm-freezing facilities because they don?t have the time for sex.

When Rao launched the Cryo Bank in Bangalore 10 years ago ? mainly to provide screened and safe sperm to infertile couples ? she never imagined she would be stocking sperm for on-the-move, over-worked, but otherwise healthy, couples.

In 10 years, Bangalore?s social profile has done a full flip. The IT and BPO industries have given rise to a workforce that follows the US clock, globe-trots, works in shifts and maintains long, hectic schedules. ?Couples complain they don?t meet for months,? says Rao.

The Cryo Centre ? which also has branches in New Delhi, Mumbai and Aurangabad ? says Bangalore has the longest client list. Rao says that they get some 35 clients from Delhi every year, compared with the Bangalore centre?s 150.

A decade ago, the Cryo Centre entertained only an odd request for sperm-freezing. Its clients comprised sports persons ? mostly cricketers ? and families where the men worked abroad (usually in West Asian countries).

Now, business is pouring in from all corners of the country. The client list runs impressively long. It includes couples who work in shift jobs; whose jobs involve excessive travelling; who want children late in life; and also those who fear their high-stress jobs will adversely affect their fertility.

?Young people are aware of all technicalities of conception,? says Dr Vidyamani Lingegowda, a Bangalore-based obstetrician and gynaecologist. Lingegowda has alone conducted 20 cases of artificial insemination for techie couples.

It?s common knowledge that stress and age reduce sperm count. And no one wants to take a chance. ?Couples store sperm as an insurance for the future,? says Rao.

Cryo preservation ? known as ?auto-conservation? in technical parlance ? has been around for long. It has been used for breeding quality animals around the globe. Patients undergoing chemo- therapy store sperm, as radiation reduces sperm count. Couples use donor sperms when the male partner has a sperm count problem.

The process of auto-conservation is simple and foolproof. The two rows of large-size steel cans hog all space at the Cryo Centre laboratory. These cans are filled with liquid nitrogen and store the sperm samples. The sperm is first screened and tested for infectious diseases and then locked away in the can for as long as the client wishes. ?Sperm can live forever in liquid nitrogen,? says Veena Rao, biochemist at the Centre. And how much does it cost to preserve the seeds of your future children? The procedure puts you back by Rs 2,500 per annum.

Despite the rise in its demand, cryo preservation is yet to gain social acceptance in Bangalore. Healthy and happily married couples don?t visit sperm banks ? says the social mindset. ?Most couples ask for late-night appointments to visit our bank,? says Bhashini Rao. It?s because sex remains a taboo topic in India, regardless of Western influences, she reasons.

But social taboo hasn?t stopped techies from rushing to sperm banks. Cryo preservation has needed no advertising or marketing to pull in the clients. ?We haven?t marketed the concept. It?s spread by word of mouth,? says Kamini Rao, medical director at the Bangalore Assisted Conception Centre. Rao adds that an increasing number of doctors and counsellors are referring patients ? who complain of stress and high work pressure ? to sperm banks.

Bhashini Rao says the idea of sperm-preservation for high-strung professionals came to her only when a techie came seeking her bank?s services. ?We?re talking about a globally travelled and aware breed,? she says as she hands over a flask and gives last-minute instructions to her delivery boy. A wife is awaiting her husband?s sperm sample at a nearby hospital.