Gender selection can be used to prevent sex-linked genetic disorders or for elective, non-medical reasons

Gender Selection for Medical Reasons

CACRM uses Preimplantation Genetic Testing for Aneuploidy (PGT-A to analyze and select embryos to prevent inherited gender-based diseases.

PGT-A gives parents the ability to choose a female or male embryo when a baby of a specific gender might be adversely affected by inheriting a serious medical condition. Parents may be aware they are carriers through pre-natal genetic testing or if they have given birth to a child affected by the disorder.

Sex-linked genetic diseases generally are inherited from the mother, and only male offspring are affected. Males are at risk if they inherit an x chromosome with a recessive gene disorder because y chromosomes do not contain the same genes and do not protect them from the disease. Parents will want to select a female embryo to prevent transmitting x-linked recessive conditions, such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy or hemophilia, affecting males.

We also use gender selection when medical conditions are more severely expressed in one gender than the other. Fragile X syndrome and autism are two examples. Parents can choose to have babies of the gender associated with a less severe form of the disease.

Additionally, there may also be psychological reasons to prefer one gender. A single female may feel better prepared to have a daughter than a son; parents who lost a child may feel a strong need for another child of the same gender.

Gender Selection – CACRM

Elective Gender Selection

Sometimes gender selection can be non-medical or elective. In such cases, a child of a specific gender is desired without an obvious medical need. The most common reason for elective gender selection is family balancing when parents already have children of one gender but want their next child to be the other gender.

Intended parents from other countries may seek gender selection in the United States because it is legal here but not where they live.

Gender Selection Process

Even though they might have no discernible fertility problems, patients must undergo in vitro fertilization with preimplantation genetic testing (PGT-A).

PGT-A is used with in vitro fertilization to test embryos for gender and also tests for abnormal chromosome disorders (aneuploidy) before transfer to the uterus.

We will transfer the highest quality embryo of the specific desired gender to the mother or surrogate and freeze any remaining embryos.

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