Mr. Li and his wife have been married for more than two years and their sex life is quite normal, but his wife’s belly has not been moving. The two of them were quite anxious, so they came to the Center for Reproductive Medicine for a checkup. It was found that Mr. Li’s sperm malformation rate was particularly high, with 99.7% of his sperm being malformed, and he was diagnosed with severe malformed spermatozoa. The doctor recommended that they have offspring through second-generation in vitro fertilization (ICSI) technology. However, Mr. and Mrs. Li were full of questions: If they got pregnant through IVF, would the high rate of sperm malformation cause fetal malformation? What are the causes of deformed sperm? How should it be treated? In fact, the above questions are what many infertile couples are wondering about. Today, I will explain “deformed sperm” to you. The normal rate of less than 4% is deformed spermatozoa According to the latest standards of the World Health Organization (WHO), the normal sperm morphology rate of less than 4% is deformed spermatozoa through strict sperm morphological staining analysis. Under normal circumstances, spermatozoa are tadpole-shaped in appearance, including the head, neck and tail. Like the existence of people with disabilities in society, human sperm can develop abnormally and appear oddly under the microscope, such as a head that is too small and a curled tail. Deformed sperm may have a defective fertilization function that makes it difficult to fertilize an egg. In fact, most of the sperm in normal male ejaculate are deformed, and only a small percentage of sperm are normal in shape. If there are too many deformed sperm, the proportion of “competitive” normal sperm will be significantly reduced, which will affect the overall “fighting power” of the sperm and will not help the sperm to successfully “capture” the egg. This affects the overall “fighting power” of the sperm, which is not conducive to the successful “capture” of the egg by the sperm, thus affecting the fertilization ability of the sperm. If the sperm deformity rate is too high, the male fertility will be low, making it difficult for the woman to get pregnant. Research shows that infection and inflammation of the reproductive glands (epididymitis, orchitis, prostatitis or vesiculitis), endocrine disorders, chromosomal abnormalities and other diseases, as well as smoking, alcoholism, late nights, high work pressure, high temperature work environment, high radiation environment and other bad habits and living environment, are the causes of aberrant spermatozoa. The majority of patients with deformed sperm can be fertile Modern medicine has been able to enable most patients with deformed sperm to be fertile. The combination of Chinese and Western medicine and medication with life care can enable some patients to reduce their sperm malformation rate and obtain natural fertility. According to Chinese medicine, kidney deficiency, damp-heat injection or concomitant stagnation are the pathological basis of excessive deformed spermatozoa, which can be treated with Chinese herbs or proprietary Chinese medicines. Western medicine commonly uses antibiotics, antioxidant drugs, anti-estrogen drugs and trace elements to treat teratozoospermia. However, some patients with teratozoospermia have difficulty in reducing sperm malformation rate and natural fertility through the above treatments and need to obtain fertility through assisted reproductive technology. Patients with mild to moderate azoospermia can be fertilized through artificial insemination and first-generation in vitro fertilization (IVF), while patients with severe and very severe azoospermia require second-generation in vitro fertilization (ICSI), which stands for intracytoplasmic single sperm injection and involves the injection of a single sperm directly into the plasma of the oocyte for fertilization with the help of a microscopic operating system. The severity of teratozoospermia does not affect the success rate of second generation IVF. As long as the internal quality of the sperm is good, some extremely severe cases of teratozoospermia (sperm malformation rate as high as 100%) can achieve a high fertility success rate with second-generation IVF technology. Fetal malformation and sperm malformation are not the same thing Will a high sperm malformation rate cause fetal malformation? Will it be easy to miscarry? In fact, fetal malformation and sperm malformation are not the same thing. Sperm malformation is only an abnormal shape that affects fertilization ability, but the intrinsic quality of sperm is the main factor that affects embryo quality and miscarriage. However, some patients with teratozoospermia have high sperm DNA fragmentation rate, chromosomal abnormalities and other diseases, which can cause higher miscarriage and fetal abnormality rates. Fetal malformations occur mainly in the early stages of a woman’s pregnancy (within the first trimester). If during this period, the pregnant woman is infected with pathogens, has a fever, takes harmful drugs (antibiotics, hormones, neurotoxic drugs, etc.), or is exposed to environmental risk factors (alcoholism, pesticides, radiation), the development of fetal organs will be directly endangered, resulting in fetal malformations or developmental delays and easy miscarriage. Thus, it seems that fetal malformation and sperm malformation are not necessarily related.