Normal, healthy semen will be a cloudy white or gray liquid with a consistency similar to raw egg or a runny jelly. It will also have an alkaline smell comparable to bleach.
Signs Sperm Has Entered the Body
Sperm Leakage – After sex, if you can see the sperm leaking out of the female's vagina, it indicates the sperm went inside and came out again. Every time a man ejaculates inside a vagina, only a few get to travel up the fallopian tube. The rest of the semen flows back outside.
Semen leakage, which occurs when semen seeps out of the penis, is a common occurrence. Semen is a whitish fluid that contains sperm. It often leaks out during sexual activity, regardless of whether ejaculation occurs. Some people may also experience semen leakage while asleep or after urination.
“To see the true movement, you would have to swim with the cell, and the way you do this, is almost like if you could get a GoPro camera and attach it to the head of the sperm, and look at the tail,” says Gadêlha.
As men get older it is also usual for their semen to become slightly thinner with less volume being produced at ejaculation. It is therefore quite normal if there appear to be clumps of jelly-like globules in your semen and there is nothing to worry about here.
Unhealthy sperm can look very different from healthy sperm in terms of color, shape, and size. Normal healthy sperm ranges in color from a transparent to a grayish white, while unhealthy sperm can often appear yellow-green or off-white.
Thick semen is not always a cause for concern, especially if this consistency is infrequent. However, if semen is often very thick, it can signal a problem with the prostate or the seminal vesicles. If a person has very thick semen, a doctor may refer to the issue as “semen hyperviscosity.”
Some studies suggest that moderate ejaculation (2–4 times per week) is associated with a lower prostate cancer risk. However, ejaculating more often doesn't mean your cancer risk drops even more.
Only one sperm needs to survive in order to fertilize an egg. However, the journey from the man's testicle to the woman's uterus is long and arduous. After ejaculation, a single sperm cell measuring only 0.5 mm needs to swim over 152 mm from the base of the cervix to the egg for fertilization.
The concentration of sperm is what makes the semen cloudy and thick, so if your ejaculate is watery it is possible that you have a low sperm count. This doesn't mean you're infertile (so precautions to prevent pregnancy still need to be taken for couples that don't want to get pregnant).
Have sex regularly. The highest pregnancy rates occur in couples who have sex every day or every other day. Have sex near the time of ovulation. If having sex every day isn't possible — or enjoyable — have sex every 2 to 3 days a week starting soon after the end of your period.
During sexual intercourse, most men ejaculate between 5-10 minutes and research has shown the average time to ejaculate after penetration is 5 1/2 minutes. Usually, ejaculation less than 1 to 1 1/2 minutes after penetration is regarded as premature ejaculation.
“And, at your fertile time, the mucus is quite receptive to sperm right there.” The fastest and healthiest sperm go right into your cervical mucus “instantaneously,” she says, making pretty much zero difference whether you lie there for a while after sex or get up and move.
If your menstrual cycle lasts 28 days and your period arrives like clockwork, it's likely that you'll ovulate on day 14. That's halfway through your cycle. Your fertile window begins on day 10. You're more likely to get pregnant if you have sex at least every other day between days 10 and 14 of a 28-day cycle.
Physical, chemical and emotional/psychological factors cause premature ejaculation. Physical and chemical problems include: An underlying erectile dysfunction diagnosis. A hormonal problem with oxytocin levels, which has a role in sexual function in men.
How many sperm do you need to get pregnant? It takes just one sperm to fertilize a woman's egg. Keep in mind, though, for each sperm that reaches the egg, there are millions that don't. On average, each time men ejaculate they release nearly 100 million sperm.
Very strong smell: Bacteria and other germs can change the way semen smells. If semen has a foul and overpowering odor or gets worse with time, it may be a sign of an infection or sexually transmitted disease. Sweet smell: Normal semen can smell slightly sweet because of the fructose it contains.
A trained expert checks your sperm count, their shape, movement, and other characteristics. In general, if you have a higher number of normal-shaped sperm, it means you have higher fertility. But there are plenty of exceptions to this. A lot of guys with low sperm counts or abnormal semen are still fertile.
Jelly-like sperm. Sometimes the causes of jelly-like sperm is the massive concentration of protein compound of your sperm in your testicular sperm bank. This is normal as long as its colour varies from white to yellowish and no blood or black or green.
For healthy semen samples collected between 5:00am and 7:30am were found to exhibit a statistically higher sperm concentration, total sperm count and a higher percentage of normally shaped sperm, compared to samples produced later in the day.
“Dopamine and testosterone levels drop, and prolactin [a hormone produced by your pituitary gland] rises.” Elevated prolactin levels post-ejaculation could play a role in your inability to get it up again.
Most couples will get pregnant within a year if they have regular sex and don't use contraception. But women become less fertile as they get older. The effect of age on men's fertility is less clear.