With the technique of the modern day world, many things that could not be done before are now possible. Nowadays intended parents can know the gender of their baby before it is even born. It is also possible to choose the gender of your baby. This can be done in a number of ways and for different reasons. In many countries gender selection is only permitted for medical reasons but in other places it can be used for other reasons as well.

New Life Mexico offers gender selection services to those of our patients that want to be able to choose the gender of their baby for different reasons. Intended parents can have many reasons for using this technique. For some it is a way to check that the baby will not have any genetical disorders, others want to add balance to their families when it comes to gender.

The Technique Behind PGD

There are different ways to select the gender of a baby. At our clinics we use Preimplantation Genetic Diagnoses, or PRD. This is a medical technique that makes it possible to determine and select the gender of a child before it is born. Specialists remove cells from embryos that have been grow for 5 or 6 days. These cells are thereafter analysed and tested. An high quality embryo of the preferred gender are then implanted into the mother.

Medical Screening

It is important to point out that PGD is not only used by those who want a baby of a certain gender. It can also be used for medical screening. This is done if there is reason to suspect that there might be genetic diseases that are related to the gender of the baby. The discovery of different genetic abnormalities can also provide explanations to a history of miscarriages in certain women.

Potential Drawbacks of PGD

One drawback of using PGD in order to determine the gender of a baby is that there will not be as many embryos left after the egg retrieval that can be used. The reason for this is that the number of embryos decreases during the analysis. Therefore the intended parents will have to have a good number of embryos with high quality to begin with, since some of them will be made unusable during the process. Due to this, the method is not recommended to those who only have a limited amount of embryos to begin with.

Another factor to consider is that the gender selection service can be quite expensive. It can cost up to 5000 USD extra if you wish to select the gender of your child during an IVF treatment. For some parents it is absolutely necessary to go through this treatment because of medical reasons. If there are no reasons to suspect any specific genetic conditions it might not be worth it, especially not if there is already a limited number of embryos available.

No Guarantees

It is important for everyone that that uses this treatment to know that it is not always 100% accurate. This is of course the case with every medical procedure in the world. It is not possible to guarantee a successful outcome in any type of treatment or medical procedure. In order to avoid disappointment and spoilt expectations we always want to point this out to our intended parents. This way they will be prepared for the fact that the gender selection might not be successful.

Over all, PGD offers intended parents unique possibilities to control the composition of their families and to avoid passing on genetic diseases. The technique is a very nice addition to the field of fertility since it provides the opportunity of choice.