Commercially popular lubricants damage sperm in a number of ways. Human sperm can survive and function as nature intended in narrow ranges of pH and electrolyte concentration. If pH or osmolality (a measure of electrolyte concentration) are too high or too low, sperm will not function optimally and may lose their ability to get to and fertilize the egg.

The optimal conditions for sperm survival and migration in the cervical mucus are a pH ranging from 7.0 to 8.5, as reported by the World Health Organization, and an osmolality in the region of 320 mOsm/kg — exactly the pH and osmolality range of Pre Conceive Plus.

Unfortunately, other lubricants have not been formulated to match optimal sperm pH and osmolality and hence have been shown to either kill sperm outright or seriously hinder their ability to move. In some cases, the lubricant effectively creates a barrier through which sperm cannot penetrate. The photograph below, taken under a light microscopic magnification of 10X, illustrates this phenomenon with the leading commercial lubricant.