An insemination is any time sperm is put into another body, intercourse included. Artificial insemination is when sperm is put into another body without intercourse.

An at-home or home insemination is when this is done outside a clinic. There are a few different ways this can be done, which I’ll get into below.

Folks who are using the at home insemination method to get pregnant  have various reasons. Sometimes its personal preference, other times its a medical issue, issues with timing or relating to sexuality. It could be something totally different. Maybe their reproductive organs don’t match up for reproduction (like a couple with two uteruses and no sperm) or they’re experiencing infertility.
No matter the reason, you are here now

People may choose to make the insemination process more personal and less medical by trying to get pregnant at home, avoiding the sterile setting at a clinic where strangers are involved in the intimate process.

In-clinic inseminations also come with extra costs because of the staff and facilities involved, so trying at home can save a significant amount of money.

One woman told me that she liked the increased flexibility of home inseminations as opposed to having doctor’s appointments at certain times that might be hard to schedule around her work hours.

A nonbinary person told me they’d rather try to get pregnant at home than deal with medical professionals’ potential questions, misgendering, and stigma.

In a world changed by COVID-19, home insemination can be the “perfect option,” according to Fredrik Andreasson, CEO of Seattle Sperm Bank.

He said clinics are hearing from clients that they want to continue with their monthly tries at home even when a clinic closes due to being “nonessential.”

For his own bank, Andreasson shares that while requests for sperm shipments to clinics decreased by 50 percent since the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States, their shipments to residences haven’t gone down at all.

There are two types of artificial insemination that can be done at home:

1. intracervical insemination (ICI), which involves putting sperm into the vagina, as would happen with intercourse
2. intrauterine insemination (IUI), which involves putting sperm directly into the uterus using a tube that goes through the cervix

IUI is almost always performed by a medical professional. However, that doesn’t mean IUI can’t happen at home. Some trained midwives make house calls for this procedure.

Regarding success rates of at-home versus clinic insemination success rates, as well as ICI versus IUI, here’s what we know:

• An older 1988 studyTrusted Source showed no statistical difference in pregnancy rates between 53 infertile women trying artificial insemination at home versus a clinic.
• A 2001 studyTrusted Source of 62 women over 189 cycles found that IUI had higher monthly success rates than ICI (15 percent versus 9 percent).
• A 2015 study of 1,843 women found pregnancy rates over six cycles were only slightly higher for IUI (40.5 percent) versus ICI (37.9 percent), with researchers noting “no substantial benefit of IUI over ICI.”
• A 2017 studyTrusted Source of three different groups of couples (ages 20 to 33 years, 33 to 36 years, and 36 and up) found at home insemination an effective way of achieving pregnancy, with success rates of 69 percent, 43 percent, and 25 percent in the three different groups over six cycles.

The most important factors for success rates are nailing the perfect timing of the insemination, the quality and quantity of the sperm sample, and the age and the hormones in the body being inseminated — not necessarily the building where the insemination happens.

If you like, you can visit with a fertility specialist and ask questions about insemination processes up front. Going to a doctor doesn’t mean you’re automatically signing up for anything or committing to an in-clinic procedure. You’re simply getting the facts, and you can still choose to do the procedure at home.