Choosing Your Child's Gender

1. Choosing Your Child's Gender By: Kellie Jorgenson, Ashton DeLeon, and Andrew Ng

2. Introduction • Need for a “balanced” family • Ways to select a child’s gender before conception • Natural Methods • Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD)

3. Natural Gender Selection • Folk Wisdom • Position during and timing of intercourse • Timing of Climax • What you eat • Shettles Method • Timing of sex along with timing of ovulation determines child’s gender • X-Chromosome Sperm are slower, but live longer

4. Natural Gender Selection (cont) • Ph Determination • Ph of woman’s egg must be opposite of the sperm for fertilization • Resources to determine what days of year woman will have correct ph levels

5. Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis(PGD) • First introduced in 1990 • What it was created for and uses today • Procedure • Collection of viable eggs • Fertilization and incubation • Analysis of DNA once 6-10 cells • Implantation of healthy, gender specific eggs • Unused embryos are destroyed

6. Ethics and Controversy behind PGD • Those For PGD and Gender Selection Argue: • Balanced Families • Reduce Population Growth • Ability to avoid sex-linked genetic disorders

7. Ethics and Controversy behind PGD • Those Against PGD and Gender Selection Argue: • Disruption of the natural selection of reproduction • Gender Balance in countries where gender status is not equal • Ability to create “designer” babies • Cost of PGD-not available to everyone • Discarding of those embryos which are not used

8. Discussion • What methods would you be willing to utilize to ensure the gender of your choice? • Do you believe it is okay for perfectly healthy embryos to be destroyed because they are not the correct sex? • Should this be a procedure that is available to everyone, or just those who can afford it?