Nancy Brackett, a researcher at the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, surveyed more than 100 fertility centers and discovered that 28 percent don’t offer two simple techniques that rehab experts have used successfully for years and that work for 95 percent of paraplegic and quadriplegic men. Brackett published her findings in the October issue of Fertility and Sterility, a journal read by reproductive medicine doctors, and now she has made the issue her soapbox.

Most men with spinal cord injuries have varying degrees of difficulty with erection and ejaculation. Medications like Viagra help some. Others need only a special vibrator to collect sperm; insemination of their partners can be done with a syringe in private, at home.

Paul and Shelly LeVasseur of Winfield, Ill., felt lucky they could conceive at home.

“There are times when it is rather clinical and there are times when it is very romantic,” Paul LeVasseur said. Their children are Ben, 6, and Danielle, 2, and they are trying for another.

Brackett wants doctors to try simple solutions before assuming they must use surgical means to retrieve sperm from the testes of injured men. In Brackett’s survey, some doctors said they lacked training or equipment, or were unfamiliar with the methods.

“If we forget these simple things, it’s almost like going backward,” Brackett said. “It does a disservice to these patients.”

Finding the right doctor is key
Miami Project researchers are also studying compounds in the semen of injured men that have a poisonous effect on sperm. The research could lead to a drug that would counteract the effect, Brackett said.

Of the 11,000 spinal cord injuries annually in the United States, 80 percent are among men between the ages of 16 and 45 — the prime reproductive years.

Rehabilitation Institute nurse practitioner Diane Rowles, who teaches a class called Sexuality and Fertility to patients, said sex is “a very private topic, a very personal topic.” But if medical staff members don’t educate spine injury patients about sex and fertility, they may assume the worst: that they’re not able to have a sex life or father children.

Aynsley Floyd / AP Geoff and Tammy Luther greet their daughter Kayla, 3, after her swim lesson in Oak Brook, Ill.

“It’s a big thing. You just can’t leave it out,” Rowles said. “They need to learn about it, too.”

The Luthers’ children haven’t asked where babies come from. Tammy said someday, if they ask, she’ll tell them about many different ways children come into the world, from adoption to reproduction with medical help.

Geoff said he doesn’t know what he would say. “I still haven’t had that talk with my mom and dad, so I’m not sure,” he said.

For men with spinal cord injuries who want to be fathers, Geoff offers this advice: “Search out the best doctors, or you can waste a lot of time and resources.”

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