GENDER SELECTION
THE ONLY WAY TO GUARANTEE THE SEX OF YOUR NEXT BABY!
Who can have gender selection?
Everyone!
In North Cyprus, pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) for gender selection is completely legal and anyone can choose to select the sex of their child. We can offer PGD gender selection to single patients, married couples, unmarried couples, same sex couples, couples who have children already and couples who don’t have any children yet but would like to choose the sex of their first baby.
How accurate is PGD for gender selection?
Virtually 100% accurate!
Sperm sorting techniques such as Microsort have a success rate of approximately 60% with regards to selecting the desired gender. However, if you want to be certain that your next baby will be the gender you are hoping for then you must use PGD. It virtually guarantees 100% that you’ll have the baby you want. No other method is anywhere near as reliable as PGD.
How does it work?
In order to have PGD, all patients (even couples who have no problems conceiving) must have in vitro fertilisation to remove eggs from the mother and fertilise them with sperm from the father.
You can read about the IVF process in detail on our IVF in Cyprus page:
http://cyprusivfcenters.com/
Once the embryos have been created in the Cyprus IVF Centre laboratory, they are incubated and left develop until they are composed of 8 cells. Once the embryos have reached eight cells in size, the embryologist will gently remove one cell (also known as a blastomere), in a micro surgical technique.
FISH (fluorescent in-situ hybridization) is then used to analyze the chromosomes of this cell under a high powered microscope. A different colour is used for each chromosome being studied, and it is this technique which will highlight any genetic abnormalities and also the gender of the embryo.
Many clinics offer PGD but they must send the cell biopsies to external laboratories for testing which can jeopardise the process and make it difficult to obtain an accurate reading. At Cyprus IVF Centre, we have a brand new in-house genetic laboratory and we do all testing on site.
Finally, on the fifth day of development when the embryos have reached blastocyst size, Dr. Firdevs will transfer up to four healthy embryos of the desired gender to the mother.
Any additional healthy embryos may be frozen for future use and the pregnancy and birth take place as normal.
Are fertility drugs used in sex selection procedures?
Yes. The fertility drugs used for PGD are consistent with our normal IVF procedures.
Is there an increased risk of a birth defect after the sex selection procedure?
No. The FISH technique of studying chromosomes has been used since the early 1980s and since then many studies have been carried out on IVF procedures. These studies, looking at fresh and frozen embryos and washed and isolated sperm show no increase in the occurrence of birth defects when compared to natural conception. In the case of PGD, while it’s still a relatively new procedure, there has been no noted increase in risk to the babies. In addition, PGD ensures that the embryos are genetically healthy prior to transfer so there is a reduced risk of abnormalities to babies born via this process.
Why is PGD better Microsort?
We have found through our own use of the sperm sorting procedure that sperm sorting is approximately 60% – 65% accurate in collecting sperm of the desired gender. The majority of our patients want as close to a 100% guarantee of conceiving a baby of their chosen gender as possible. Microsort alone doesn’t provide that guarantee.
It should be remembered that PGD is nearly 100% effective (99.9%). For this reason, we now recommend PGD as the primary treatment option to couples requiring gender selection and we use Microsort sperm sorting prior to fertilisation to increase the number of embryos of the desired gender. After the eggs have been fertilised with mainly X or Y sperm, we then we do PGD chromosome analysis to definitely assess the gender of the embryos before the transfer.
Case Studies
Couple 1:
Gizem and Kerem (names have been changed for confidentiality) contact us with a request for gender selection. The couple reports having successfully conceived and delivered three healthy females. The last birth was three years ago. Kerem has a strong family history of girls being born, with his sister having produced two girls, and four cousins also having had a total of six female and one male offspring.
Kerem had prior genetic analysis of his total sperm production to ascertain the “sex ratio” (percentage of “X” and “Y” sperm). His sample was found to contain 52% of the viable sperm seen carrying a “Y” (male producing) chromosome. Kerem’s total sperm count was 41 million per ml. So, of the 41 million sperm, 52% had the correct sex chromosome needed to produce a male child.
The couple chose to proceed with IVF and PGD gender selection for a boy. They were rewarded with a twin pregnancy that resulted in the birth of two healthy male infants.
Couple 2:
A young British couple contacted us with a history of having produced three boys over the past five years. With very few female offspring in either of their families, they were interested in sex selection with the aim of having a baby girl.
They undertook an initial telephone consultation with the Team Miracle patients coordinator Julie Hodson that indicated their suitability for our program so long as some initial blood tests that Dr. Firdevs requested were in order. The blood testing was ordered from a private fertility clinic near their home in Birmingham. One week later, the initial blood screening results showed them to be excellent candidates for the sex selection procedure.
The couple had medication sent to them from our UK based distributor and commenced stimulation the following menstrual cycle. Ten days later, they arrived in North Cyprus. Their travel and accommodation arrangements had been coordinated with our partner travel agency who had a car meet them at the airport in Larnaca. They were transported to the hotel they had chosen and the next morning had a scan at our facility. Everything was as expected and egg collection occurred 2 days later.
After our embryologists washed and prepared the sperm, we were able to obtain 23 million sex selected sperm from the Microsort procedure. The PGD analysis demonstrated 4 healthy female embryos and 3 healthy male embryos, along with 2 abnormal embryos. The three normal female embryos were transferred to the uterus. The couple returned home after two “extra” days of holiday in North Cyprus and two weeks later a pregnancy test was positive. A single healthy female birth resulted.
Is there a guarantee?
Team Miracle is motivated to provide high quality medical services and we strictly adhere to proven protocols and ways of working that have a history of providing excellent outcome results.
While we cannot “guarantee” a desired outcome to anyone, we can now come as close to a guarantee as science allows. With the IVF-PGD option, success rates are 99.9%. Couples in our program can feel comfortable that once treatment begins, they do have a nearly 100% excellent chance of getting that eagerly awaited baby boy or girl when pregnancy occurs.
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