Testing a man's sperm health and its count can now be done at the comfort of one's home, thanks to modern technology. Personal sperm test kits are on the rise and they can be found over the counter, along the shelves of pregnancy kit and prophylactics.
These sperm-observing kits are mostly FDA-approved and come for variety of functions. One brand of which is YO, a kit available in stores and can be operated using an app, Tech Crunch reported.
YO is able to observe the motility of sperms which is vital for fertilization. Almost half of males with reproductive problems have sperms that are not moving the right way, and this is where YO becomes extremely useful. Instead of lining up to the doctor--an often awkward move for men at times--they can just observe the sperm privately at home.
By just taking a picture of the sperm placed in a sterile slide, men can easily check their sperms using the app if they swim to the right direction. YO sperm test kits can be on the lower end of the price spectrum as it costs under $50 but there are kits that can cost higher.
Trak, a sperm test kit available online for purchase, costs an expensive $200 for counting a male's sperm. It is, however, unable to observe reproductive cells' movement. As useful as they seem for some, other people think that sperm test kits are still less reliable compared to an actual doctor's prognosis.
Registered nurse, Mari Dominguez, told ABC Fox News that while these are great products of technology, it cannot ever replace medical professionals.
"If you're relying on this to say yes, I'm not going to get someone pregnant or you're trying to get pregnant and you're getting misinformation like oh I have low sperm," Dominguez told the publication. "To me, it just doesn't have enough clinical accuracy to get somebody useful information."
Infertility problems are a perrenial problem for a fifth of the American adult males. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sperm analysis consist of concetration, motility and morphology tests.
