Planning a pregnancy is exciting. You probably think about your future baby all the time. Does she have her father’s eyes? Does he have mom’s hair color? Is your baby wrapped up in blue or pink? Obviously the health and wellness of the baby-to-be is the foremost concern of parents, but couples undergoing IVF for infertility issues are able to opt for one gender over another.
Reasons For Gender Selection
The reasons for gender selection are highly personal. The most common reason for gender selection is to balance the family scales already tipping in one direction or the other. Some couples prefer to have one child of each gender.
There may be a medical reason behind gender selection. Some inherited conditions affect one gender only or are more prominent in one sex over the other. Muscular dystrophy, for example, disproportionately impacts males so opting to select a female embryo lowers that risk.
Cultural, religious and family traditions often factor into gender selection. Parents who have a personal preference have myriad reasons for opting for gender selection. We have compiled a collection of gender selection methods to help you understand how the process works.
Methods For Gender Selection
Google gender selection and you will find plenty of options. Unfortunately many of those options are either scams to sell you a type of gender-selecting “snake oil” or old wives tales handed down through generations and are unproven and unreliable. Gender selection is a medical technique and only a fertility specialist can guide you.
IVF with Preimplantation Genetic Testing, or Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGT or PGD) is the only proven method of gender selection. Sperm sorting that used to be an option in the past has not proven to be as successful as it was once expected and thus no longer reliable or available. IVF with PGT has a 99% success rate for either gender.
IVF with PGT
Parents can expect a nearly 99-100% success rate in determining the sex of the child with this method.
Preimplantation genetic testing uncovers the gender of your embryo before you become pregnant. The mother’s eggs are harvested and fertilized using her partner’s sperm or donor sperm. A doctor removes a cell from the embryo for testing before implantation. This doesn’t harm the embryo in any way. It does allow genetic analysis for certain chromosomal abnormalities and viability. The testing also reveals the gender of each embryo. Upon completion of the testing the couple can select the healthy embryos they wish to have implanted. When pregnancy results the gender selection success rate is nearly 100%