Gender selection is a treatment option chosen by patients who would like to choose the sex of their child before pregnancy. Patients may prefer to choose the sex of their unborn child due to family balancing purposes, or in some instances, as a method of prevention against certain X-linked genetic disorders.

As a method of family balancing, patients often seek our gender selection program when they already have a number of kids. However, sometimes, by the time they would like to balance their families, the level of fertility may decline to very low levels. When the female patient’s ovarian reserves decline to such low levels, pregnancy with own eggs may not be possible.

Known genetic predisposition

Couples who would like to select the sex of their child due to a known genetic predisposition to a sex-linked (X-linked) condition. X-linked diseases are single gene disorders that point to the presence of gene mutations or gene defects on the X chromosome. Since males only acquire one copy of the X chromosome from the mother, only one mutated allele is sufficient to cause a sex-linked disease on males. This suggests that males are more prone to the majority of X-linked diseases compared to females.

Family Balancing

MicroSort for Sperm Sorting

Our Cyprus IVF Centre is the only official clinic offering MicroSort sex selection technology in Europe, Middle East, Asia and Africa. MicroSort is a sperm sorting method which enables us to sort a sperm sample chromosomally into X (female) and Y (male) bearing cells. That way, by having a sperm sample sorted into two batches, we know which sperm batch has the capability of producing a male child and which one can produce a female child. The sorted sperm, in turn, is used to fertilise the female patient’s eggs so that pregnancy can be planned with a desired sex.

Pre-implantation Genetic Screening (PGS)

Our IVF laws do NOT allow for PGS to be used as a sex selection method unless there is a genetically inheritable X-linked disease that runs in the family, in which case, PGS becomes the only option of having a healthy child. Therefore, using PGS for family balancing is not an option. This is due to ethical reasons since PGS can only tell the gender of the embryos once the embryos have been created. Therefore, if choosing one sex over the other, almost half of the embryos would be destroyed for not being the “right” gender. In order to avoid this, we do not use PGS alone as a sex selection method.

 Related Topics

• Pre-Implantation Genetic Screening 
• Sex Selection using Donor Eggs