Our Gender Selection Service allow prospective parents to choose the sex of their future babies. The technique is recommended for couples who will not accept a child of the undesired gender.
Gender selection, also known as sex selection, is a medical technique used by intended parents to choose the sex of their offspring: a boy or a girl. There are several reasons intending parents may wish to select the gender of their child /children: to balance the gender in the family, to prevent genetic disease or disorders linked to one particular sex and to meet some cultural and social norms.
At Primecare Fertility Clinic gender selection service is provided to intending parents who have legitimate concern about specific genetic disorders or are dealing with family balancing. Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) for Gender Selection
There are several methods used for gender selection and Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) is one them. PGD is a procedure used prior to implantation (transfer to uterus) of the embryo/embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF).
The gender of the embryo is usually determined by sex chromosomes, for example the sex chromosomes XX determine the female sex, while XY define the male sex. At Primecare Fertility Clinic the sex chromosomes of created embryos are determined by applying Polymerase Chain Reaction or PCR technology or more recently the New generation sequencing (NGS), for which embryos are usually cultured for 5 days, at blastocyst stage and then trophectoderm cells are removed from the embryo for diagnostics. The technique provides information about the sex chromosomes of the selected embryo, and when required determines the presence or absence of aneuploidies.
Important Note
Please note that despite the fact that the applied technologies are very precise, there is no 100 % accuracy assured, therefore the procedure has known risks of false negative or false positive results. This may be due to the fact that many embryos show chromosomal inconsistencies from cell to cell, meaning that the cell taken from biopsy may not represent the other cell of the embryo.
Moreover, PGD procedure affects the overall success rate of IVF as well. Based on our experience, mostly 50% of the embryos can usually develop until blastocyst stage on day 5-7. Furthermore, not all of these embryos will be of the best quality which may result lower pregnancy rate compare to standard IVF procedure completed without PGD procedure.
PGD for gender selection is not recommended in case of limited number of embryos since it may diminish the quantity of them. Although, if there is strong indication for the gender selection procedure, program details are evaluated carefully by skilled and experienced doctors to agree the best steps forward with the intended parent/parents. If parents are planning to have PGD for gender selection and are in need of an egg donor, it is highly recommended to choose the donor having the donation history of producing high number of quality eggs. We strongly encourage reviewing the egg donor profile carefully before finalizing any of them for the program with PGD procedure.
We usually encourage our intending parents to make the final decision about PGD once egg retrieval results are known, the number of developing embryos is satisfactory and the doctor gives green light for it. Although, there are cases when the gender selection is inevitable and in this case intending parents are informed about pros and cons of the procedure in advance, so that they can make informed decision.
Medical Screening
In addition to gender selection, PGD can be used for medical screening to prevent numerous disease determined by specific chromosomes. There are several options to choose from:
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- PGD with Gender Selection testing up to 5 embryos for chromosomes 13, 18, 21, X and Y
- PGD with Aneuploidy , testing up to 5 embryos for chromosomes X, Y, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22 and gender selection
- PGD for Gender Selection and Complete Chromosome Screening [CCS] , testing up to 5 embryos for all 23 types of chromosomes
Call now +234 703 970 6610 for more information about cost, treatment schedule and other requirements.