There are two primary motivating factors that lead couples to choose the path of gender selection.
- Family Balancing: Couples can use sex selection as an elective process to diversify gender in the household.
- Medical Necessity: When specific gender related disorders are at high risk, screening for sex and identifying chromosomally normal embryos leads to the greatest chance for a healthy and successful pregnancy.
Treatment Options
The most successful method for gender selection includes IVF with Pre-implantation Genetic Screening (PGS). PGS is available to all patients using IVF to conceive, whether they are experiencing infertility or are undergoing treatment specifically for balancing their family. PGS is performed via embryo biopsy following in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and allows the patient to select the gender of the embryo before being placed in the uterus. After the biopsy, the embryos are analyzed for both karyotype chromosomal health and for gender.
While PGS is not used to determine a specific disease diagnosis, it is used to screen for missing or extra copies of chromosomes (i.e.: Aneuploidy). This will help couples either select healthy embryos with a normal number of chromosomes or avoid conditions such as down syndrome.
PGS is also helpful in preventing gender linked diseases from being passed on by allowing couples to use sex selection to increase the chances for a healthy baby. For example, couples may choose PGS for gender selection to decrease the chances of the child developing hemophilia or x-linked diseases. Both of these diseases are shown to be male dominant. In these cases, sex selection can be performed choosing to implant only female embryos.
PGD is Pre-Implantation Genetic testing of embryos which are similar but a detailed analysis further down into a chromosome for mutations is performed.
Accuracy and Success Rates
PGS has proven to be safe and highly successful. Statistics show an accuracy rate of 99.9% in determining the baby’s sex.
Furthermore, the transfer of a single healthy embryo helps to reduce the chance of a twin or triplet pregnancy, and increases the chance of a single healthy baby being born.
Conclusion
The popularity of gender selection with PGS is indicative of parents’ desire to have more control in the health of their child.
To learn more about gender selection, please contact us at 904.260.0352 in Jacksonville or Tallahassee or 407.244.5515 in Orlando.