Gender Selection

Do you want to balance the gender in your family?

Preimplantation genetic testing (PGT) can help patients have a child of an underrepresented gender in their family or of a desired gender. Keep in mind that The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technologies (SART.org) has guidelines mandating fertility specialists to discourage patients from choosing one gender over another. This is because such choices are viewed as a form of sex discrimination.  Our society does, indeed, ascribe certain desirable and undesirable characteristics to each sex and it is usually for such reasons that prospective parents wish for offspring of a certain gender.  When building a family, one should keep in mind that having a healthy child is of paramount importance and that each child will be quite different from its siblings, even from siblings of the same sex.

Though each pregnancy has a 50% chance to be male and a 50% chance to be female, some families have more children of one gender. If undergoing an in-vitro fertilization (IVF) procedure has been deemed necessary to conceive, it is understandable that, in such situations, a family may request PGT, especially because PGT can have other benefits for IVF patients in addition to allowing  for gender selection in some cases; PGT is a procedure that can be performed only on embryos formed as the result of IVF.  Also, PGT is the only certain way to determine the sex of an embryo before it implants. Therefore, PGT can be used to control or select, the gender of a resultant IVF pregnancy.

Men and women requesting PGT for gender selection are evaluated on a case by case basis so you can determine if the procedure makes sense for you.  For more information about family balancing or to schedule an appointment for an evaluation for PGT please do not hesitate to call FIRST!