Baby Gender Selection - Can You Choose Your Baby’s Sex?

June 8, 2007

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It used to be that a woman became pregnant and prepared to have a child of either sex. New technology has been invented to allow parents the opportunity to take over for Mother Nature. Selection of gender has become a reality.

For as long as I can remember there have been old wives’ tales about the sex of a baby. People used to say that if you carried low, your baby would be a boy. I have even heard that if a young child is disagreeable with you during pregnancy, that that meant that your unborn child was of the same sex.

Gender selection has become a high tech business. Couples are spending thousands of dollars for techniques that are purported to give them a child that is the gender of their choice. These expensive methods claim anywhere from a 75% to a 90% success rate.

Pre-implantation genetic analysis (PGD) is an in vitro fertilization technique designed to eliminate the risk of genetic disorders in an embryo. Eggs are removed from the ovaries and fertilized in a Petri dish with the husband’s sperm. Once the embryos are five days old, a cell is removed and tested for possible genetic abnormalities. The healthy embryos are transferred to the mother’s uterus for implantation.

Another technique is MicroSort. MicroSort uses a dyeing agent to stain the sperm in an attempt to separate female-producing sperm from male-producing ones. The theory is that female-producing sperm are larger. The dye makes them easier to be seen. Using artificial insemination (AI), the desired sperm are inserted into the uterus and allowed to fertilize the egg as usual.

Ericsson is a technique that also aims to separate sperm according to their gender properties. In this case, Ericsson contends that female-producing sperm are slower swimmers. Sperm are poured in a test tube on top of a glue-like substance. The sperm are allowed to migrate. The faster swimmers will reach the bottom of the tube first. Depending on the gender you are choosing, those sperm are used to fertilize the egg in vivo.

There are even at-home techniques for determining baby gender. These techniques incur little or no expense to the parents, but the rate of success is lower as well, about 50%. At-home methods use basal body temperature to determine when ovulation begins. Having sex right at ovulation time would produce a male and having sex a few days before would produce a female.

None of these methods are foolproof, but the high tech ones are most effective. Scientists debate whether the technology should be outlawed or allowed to be used at will. For now, gender selection is an option for parents that want a certain sex child.

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Posted by admin | Filed Under Pregnancy 

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