Do sperm and lubricants gel well with each other? A systematic review

Abstract

Vaginal lubricants are commonly used to aid sexual pleasure and/or to help combat vaginal dryness and dyspareunia. Several studies have reported their impact on sperm function, however there are no published guidelines to help healthcare professionals and couples select a vaginal lubricant that is ‘sperm-safe’. To address this, we conducted a literature search using both PubMed and Scopus to identify and appraise manuscripts that reported the impact of lubricants on sperm function. We did not restrict the literature search by year of publication, and we only included manuscripts that looked at the impact of vaginal lubricants on human sperm. The quality of the eligible studies was assessed using the Björndahl et al., (2016) checklist for semen analysis, as most of the studies reported the findings of a basic semen analysis. A total of 24 articles were eligible for analysis with a total of 35 vaginal lubricants (that were available to buy over the counter) being included, 2 of which studied the effect of vaginal lubricants on sperm function in vivo, and 22 being conducted in vitro. KY Jelly, PreSeed and Astroglide were most studied, with most manuscripts focussing on their impact on sperm motility. A paucity of data on most lubricants combined with methodological variations between studies and limited/no reporting on pregnancy outcomes means greater efforts are required before an evidence-based guideline can be published.

Keywords:

• Vaginal lubricants
• sperm function
• systematic review
• recommendations

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Professor Christopher Barratt (School of Medicine, University of Dundee) for his feedback on the article.

Authors’ roles

EG and SAG performed the initial study design. EG performed the original data collection and data analysis as part of her MSc research project under School of Medicine, University of Dundee. The initial draft of the manuscript was written by EG and SAG, followed by discussions and further drafting by MPR. All authors contributed to the writing and editing of the final draft of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data underlying this article will be shared on reasonable request to the corresponding author.