Boy or girl – the appliance of science…
Your
pregnancy, your baby – should it be your right to choose whether you have a boy or a girl? More parents are doing it, using either natural methods or scientific gender selection methods – and surveys suggest as many as 40% of women said they’d take advantage of the opportunity if it was offered to them.
However, for some parents-to-be, gender selection is way more serious than ‘balancing’ the family. If there’s a serious illness or condition in your family history, your baby’s life may depend on his gender – for example, you may need to avoid a hereditary disease such as muscular dystrophy or hemophilia, which are more likely to affect boys. Many experts believe that sex selection should only be considered on medical grounds such as these.
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine doesn’t favor making non-medical sex selection illegal but its opponents say it raises important ethical questions – not least of which is the point that if everyone was able to do it, Mother Nature’s carefully balanced gender mix would be seriously compromised. Some experts believe that doing it because your religion or culture places a higher value on one particular sex (one study showed that over 90% of parents who did favor sex selection would prefer a son) could potentially be the first step on the road to selective breeding, and having the final say over your baby’s IQ or eye color. Its supporters say that if parents strongly desire a boy or a girl and find out they are expecting the less-favored sex, there’s a risk they might terminate their pregnancy or find it difficult to bond with their baby once it’s born.
But whatever your motives, science is now giving parents the power to choose…
Sperm sorting
This is the oldest method of scientific sex selection and was developed in the 1970s. Known as the Ericsson method, after its inventor, it sorts sperm by gender, based on the principle that male sperm are lighter and faster and female sperm heavier and slower. The sperm are literally filtered through human serum, which separates the speedier male sperm. Depending on whether you want a boy or a girl you’re then artificially inseminated with the faction of sperm that contains most of the gender you’d prefer. This method has been shown to be 70-75% effective if you want a boy and 70-72% effective if you want a girl and is also the cheapest – from $1,000- $2,000. However, the success rate does mean three out of 10 couples will not get the desired sex.
Costs can rocket if treatments are unsuccessful – especially if fertility drugs and IVF come into the equation
MicroSort
This is a newer variation on the old method of sperm sorting, and works on the basis that female sperm are bigger. The sperm is stained with a special fluorescent dye and then examined with a laser. The larger female sperm absorb more of the dye and glow more brightly under the laser, thus enabling the two genders to be sorted. The chosen gender is then used for artificial insemination. MicroSort has been shown to be successful around 90% of the time if you want a girl, and around 74% successful with boys, and many couples have used it to select girl babies if they risk passing on a disease that affects only boys. However, as with the older sperm sorting method, it can’t guarantee you the desired sex since it’s possible that some sperm of the opposite gender might be included when you’re inseminated. Expect to pay around $3000 per treatment; more if you use fertility drugs or IVF.
MicroSort has fairly strict enrollment criteria: you need to be married and either you or your partner has to be a known carrier of a male-linked disorder if you want to use sex selection to avoid transmitting a genetic disease; or married with at least one child and with the prospective mom aged 18-39 if you wish to use MicroSort to balance your family. Additionally, if you’re undergoing artificial insemination you will need to attend one of MicroSort’s two regional clinics, in Fairfax, Virginia, and Laguna Hills, California. If you wish to use MicroSort in conjunction with IVF, your sorted sperm sample can be transported to your doctor.
Preimplantation genetic diagnoses (PGD)
With this method, embryos created with IVF are screened for gender and genetic disorders before being transferred back into your uterus. It’s likely that two embryos will be transferred back, to increase your chances of a successful outcome – obviously this also increases your chance of having twins (around 40% of babies conceived through IVF are twins). PGD is almost 100% effective at guaranteeing your baby’s sex, assuming your embryo implants successfully but this method is rarely used for non-medical reasons. It’s also worth considering that although your baby is less likely to have the genetic disorder you’re hoping to avoid, the risk is still there.
This is the most expensive option for sex selection – you could be looking at over $20,000. You’ll need to take fertility drugs that may have unpleasant side-effects and the procedure to remove eggs from your ovaries can be painful. However, you can opt to have any ‘extra’ embryos frozen for future implantation, which will cost less than starting again from scratch. Do bear in mind that at some point you may have to make a difficult decision about what to do with any frozen embryos you don’t use.