Gender Selection through IVF and Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis

Amid the old wives’ tales and pseudoscience, so far, there is only one clinically-proven way to choose the gender of your baby—gender selection through in vitro fertilization (IVF) and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD).

Whoa, that’s a lot of medical jargon.

Think of getting pregnant au natural, kind of like choosing a delicious treat out of a box of chocolates. Half the box of chocolates is full of caramel-centered (boy), and the other half is chocolate buttercream (girl). In this box, each of the chocolates looks identical, their only difference is in the filling. When you’re making a baby in the “old-fashioned way,” you close your eyes and pick a chocolate at random.

With PGD, you’re not choosing blind. This process essentially gives you a chocolate map so you can choose exactly which kind of sweetness you’ll be bringing into your life.

This process breaks down into two key steps:

• Step one is IVF. IVF is a series of procedures that helps fertility. Essentially, through this fertility treatment process, mature eggs are removed from a woman’s body to meet healthy male sperm cells in a laboratory setting. From there, the sperm cells fuse with the eggs to become the cellular beginnings of a baby in adorable little Petri dishes. If not covered by insurance, one round of IVF costs around $10,00-15,000.
• Step two is PGD. PGD is an added, optional stage of the IVF process in which a medical professional runs a DNA screen on the embryos. PGD is predominantly used to check for genetic predispositions for hereditary diseases, but a major side benefit is that it also provides the sex of each embryo. From there, the prospective parents can choose which embryo(s) to implant in the mother’s womb, and the baby’s gender can be one of the considerations. PGD can cost about $5,000-10,000.

A Crash Course in the IVF Process

IVF is a medical process that helps women get pregnant by artificially fertilizing, developing, and then implanting an embryo into a woman’s body. It’s also a necessary first step for gender selection through PGD.

1. Ovulation Induction

The process begins with medications that stimulate the ovaries to produce multiple mature eggs, rather than the usual one per cycle. This increases the number of embryos available for testing and implantation.

Throughout this phase, your doctor will monitor your hormone levels and follicle development with blood tests and ultrasounds to determine the optimal time for egg retrieval.

2. Egg Retrieval

Once the eggs are mature, they are collected during a short outpatient procedure. Your doctor will retrieve the eggs from the ovaries under light sedation using a thin needle guided by ultrasound.

The number of eggs retrieved typically ranges from 10 to 20, depending on your response to the medications.

3. Fertilization in the Lab

The retrieved eggs are combined with sperm in a controlled lab environment to encourage fertilization. Once fertilized, the eggs begin developing into embryos over the next several days.

4. Embryo Development & Selection

Embryologists monitor the embryos for quality and growth. If you’re choosing to undergo preimplantation genetic testing (PGD), a few cells will be carefully biopsied from each viable embryo for genetic testing—this includes screening for chromosomal conditions and identifying the embryo’s biological sex.

5. Embryo Transfer

After testing, one or more healthy embryos (based on your doctor’s recommendation) are selected and transferred into the uterus. This is a quick, non-surgical procedure performed with a thin catheter.

Pregnancy occurs if one of the embryos successfully implants into the uterine lining.

Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis

Still wondering how to choose the sex of your baby using this process? That is where PGD comes into play. This process occurs between intrauterine insemination and embryo transfer. Let’s rewind the clock to insemination: the eggs are inseminated, cells have divided, and embryos are ready for their next big act of embryo transfer! PGD is performed at this moment.

The three steps of PGD include:

1. Microsurgery – Around day 3 of the embryo’s development, a tiny bit of the embryo is removed in a biopsy using microsurgery. How tiny are we talking? One or two cells out of the 100-150 cells that make up the embryo. This does not affect the health of the embryos. Think of it like gently plucking a stray hair from your soon-to-be baby’s head. Easy peasy microsurgery.
2. Genetic Testing – The sample undergoes a DNA test where embryologists (scientists who study embryos) look for:

• Hereditary diseases like Huntington’s disease or cystic fibrosis
• Signs of health within the embryonic cells indicate its chance of implantation
• Gender (X chromosomes or Y chromosomes)

3. Sharing the results – Your medical provider will go over the results of the test, telling you which embryos have a higher chance of implantation, which have predispositions for genetic diseases, and which are boys and girls. You decide which ones you want to have implanted.

From there, you resume normal IVF procedures with an embryo transfer, and a microscopic stork delivery of your chosen little boys or girls.

Considering IVF and PGD? Here Are Some Things to Keep in Mind

When it comes to gender selection, it doesn’t get more cutting-edge than IVF and PGD. But before you start picking out wall colors or adding tutus to your baby shower registry, some factors to consider:

• Time and Probability – Fertility experts say it may take multiple rounds of IVF to achieve pregnancy. In fact, only 40-50% of IVF embryos become pregnancies. However, PGD may help those odds. The embryo screening process helps identify healthy embryos that are more likely to implant, increasing those implantation chances to 60-70%.
• Cost – Without help from your insurance provider, IVF and PGD can get expensive. A single IVF attempt (one round of ovulation induction, egg retrieval, intrauterine insemination, and embryo transfer) costs around $10,00-15,000. Add PGD to the mix and your total bill could be $20,000-25,000. And if the first round(s) of IVF isn’t successful, multiply that.
• Side Effects – Every surgery can be a little scary. The good news is that the outpatient procedures required for IVF have minimal risk and discomfort compared to more intensive surgeries. The flip side is that the medication taken to induce ovulation prior to egg retrieval can result in side effects such as:

• Bloating
• Cramping
• Breast tenderness
• Mood swings
• Headaches
• Infection

Gender Selection Through Gender Swaying: Facts and Fiction

Gender selection using IVF and PGD is definitely a game-changer in the baby-making business. But can you pick the sex of your baby any other way?

As of now, scientists have found no evidence that any other gender selection method works.

Here are just a few gender-swaying methods you may have heard of and why they’re not as scientifically sound as IVF with PGD.

• Shettles Method – Dr. Shettles believed that the key to unlocking gender selection was in knowing how to handle the sperm. Sperm cells are the deciding factor when it comes to an embryo’s gender. Essentially, sperm cells that carry an X gene (also called chromosome) produces girls, while sperm cells that carry a Y gene produces boys.

• Whelan Method – Public health researcher Elizabeth Whelan claimed that biochemical changes in a woman’s body during her menstrual cycle could impact whether X-carrying sperm or Y-carrying sperm survived in the womb to fertilize an egg.

• The Underwear Method – Some laboratory studies showed that X-carrying sperm cells—cells that turn an egg into a little girl—can survive higher temperatures than Y-carrying sperm. From there, gender-swaying enthusiasts derived that a man could wear briefs to keep his testicles, where sperm are produced, closer to his body and thus warmer. The goal? Cook off Y-carrying sperm using body heat. The truth is all sperm are heat sensitive. So if you’re trying to get pregnant, briefs aren’t recommended for your partner. Briefs hold the testicles closer to the body, increasing heat and potentially reducing sperm count.

While there are many gender-swaying methods out there, when it comes to reality, the only way to get cooking on gender selection is with IVF and PGD.

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