How long can sperm keep alive in a fridge?

[Justalivingduck]

How long can sperm live inside a fridge (around 3-5°C)?
Is it possible or 100% impossible that sperm that has been in it for some (maybe 4?) hours makes somebody pregnant?

[CurfewX]

Eh, I'm not particularly interested in a purely academic conversation.

There's no point in refrigerating sperm. When sperm is preserved for later use, it's done so at -196C.  When it's used for at-home artificial insemination, it's recommended to be used "fresh," at room temperature, within an hour.

The withdrawal method CAN and does result in pregnancy, since pre-ejaculate contains sperm and would be deposited near the cervix.  Handjob with sperm isn't viable because there's no real way to get enough ejaculate on a hand and up to the cervix - the same reason ejaculating outside of the vagina isn't a risk. Sperm don't "crawl" up a vagina and into the cervix.

Since the MedHelp forums are intended to help people with actual medical issues they are experiencing, rather than for the discussion of theoretical issues, I'll stop here to avoid derailing the purposes of these forums and leave speculative conversations for venues such as Reddit (where at least one person will always tell you a theoretical possibility is a realistic possibility).

[CurfewX]

I will probably regret asking this, but why is someone keeping sperm in a refrigerator?

The only realistic way for a woman to become pregnant is by inserting a penis into a vagina. Any other method you think of (outside of a fertility clinic) is not realistic.

[Justalivingduck]

I know it's not realistic. It's ludicrous to try to get someone pregnant in this way. But I still want to discuss its possibility. I've seen a lot of posts on the internet, and the general idea is that sperm can't be kept in the refrigerator for a long time, but it can be kept alive for about four hours. Does that mean I could theoretically put my sperm in the freezer, then take it out a few hours later and make someone pregnant? (The possibility of such a pregnancy is very low, but it seems that it cannot be ignored)

This sounds like a paradox, because if it were possible, it would probably be possible to get pregnant as other methods of unintended pregnancy such as withdrawal/handjob with sperm. Then with a sufficiently large sample size, this will almost certainly happen some. But I seem (I don't know if it's because I know too little) that I have never heard of such an example.

[Justalivingduck]

*not handjob but fingering in the second paragraph. it doesn't really matter anyway.

[specialmom]

I think because this is a medical forum, you will live in the world of reality here. People can't store sperm in their basic frig next to the bologna and get anyone pregnant. It will never happen. It CAN be ignored.  You won't get someone pregnant by ejaculating and keeping it in your frig and then I guess turkey basting it into a woman? Nah. Let's stick to reality and modern medicine that doesn't agree with your proposal that this might work. It won't.