Gender selection for second child

[smzaz]

I am new to this site and wanted to see if anyone out there has any experience with gender selection. I am a mother of one autistic boy (3yrs) and I have been extremely hesitant to have a second child. My ob suggested looking into this option to try to reduce our chances of having a second child with autism by having a girl. I recognize that this is very controversial and I have mixed emotions about it. The last 3 years have been very hard on us and our son as well (as I am sure most of you can relate to). So does anyone have any experience with this?

[StrictNon-Confo]

As someone that's AS with an older autistic sister and a young (2.5 year) autistic nephew (son of my twin sister, who is slightly younger than I am, for clarification: she's very NT) from an immediate family of 6 other siblings total, I find the whole concept of trying to steer towards a specific gender in order to hopefully achieve the effect of eugenics of not getting a particular trait that isn't guaranteed not to exist in one gender to be, at best, damned insulting to those on the spectrum, regardless of the outcome. Also, it reeks much of what has happened in China, which now has a huge overpopulation of males compared to females, leaving many men with no real hopes of a normal family life, with many long-term results due to this mess. I'm not talking a small percentage difference in population like in most of the world (where woman tend to outnumber men by a few percent) but a lot more than that.

But, perhaps I've wandered off the point. The only way you can avoid the result of having a child on the spectrum is to not have a child at all of your own genetics, and adopting one that's already clearly not on the spectrum: this means, of course, you're most likely forced to adopt an older child that's been tested by life.

Why would I suggest such a thing? Consider this: if you do go out of your way to direct which gender of a child you get in hopes of getting someone that you don't see as being defective, what happens if they are on the spectrum? :huh: You may claim that you will love them just the same and treat them equally to your expectations, but who will believe that any child that turns out to be other than what someone was consciously aiming for will get treated without prejudice?

And then comes another thing: who are you to claim that your current son will never understand his nature, and never understand the nature of the nature of your choice to try to control the nature of his would-be sibling in an unnatural way, to try to avoid ending up with someone else (a son) with the same nature as him?

For the reasons cited above, I strongly believe the whole thought of what you've currently got in mind should be aborted, because it is miss-guided.

[Lisa S]

StrictNon-Confo makes some good points. My daughter Catherine is autistic, so you should not expect having a daughter instead of a son to insure you against having a child with autism. But I believe that if you want your second child to be a daughter, then that is your husband's and your right to choose. Your options are sperm sorting with intrauterine insemination or in-vitro fertilization with preimplantation genetic diagnosis of the embryos. There is a procedure called MicroSort to separate sperm. They claim a 89.5% chance of having a daughter with this procedure. You could look into IVF with PGD at the Infertility Center of Saint Louis, if you want to be absolutely certain you will have a daughter. The two Missouri doctors participating in MicroSort are:

Peter Ahlering, M.D.
Sher Institute
456 N. New Ballas Road, Suite 101
Creve Coeur, MO 63141
(314) 983-9000
Family Balancing and Genetic Disease
www.haveababy.com

Sherman Silber, M.D.
Infertility Center of St. Louis
224 S. Woods Mill Road, Suite 730
St. Louis, MO 63107
(314) 576-1400
Family Balancing and Genetic Disease
www.infertile.com

I disagree with one of StrictNon-Confo's points, however: "You may claim that you will love them just the same and treat them equally to your expectations, but who will believe that any child that turns out to be other than what someone was consciously aiming for will get treated without prejudice?" I don't think parents consciously aim for their child to be born with physical challenges. That is why women take vitamins before they become pregnant and during their pregnancies. They see doctors and do everything they can to give their baby the best chance of being born healthy. But if the baby has problems, I believe most parents will love him or her just as much and probably even more. Catherine was born with several problems, but I don't believe a parent of a perfect child could love that child more than I love Catherine.

[smzaz]

Lisa-

I really appreciate your honesty and realistic attitude. I know that there are many people out there who disagree with this. I also disagree with some of what nonconform said. I fully recognize that our chances are not eliminated by having a girl and whatever little person is brought into our lives, with or with out challenges, we will love them unconditionally just as we love our son. I am not searching for the "perfect" child because I know whatever we have they will be perfect in my eyes just as sam is. Obviously everyone has the right to there own opinion, I just haven't decided what is right for us yet.

I appreciate the advice and information.

[Lisa S]

Hi smzaz,
I'm not sure if you are still around, but I just saw this article I thought you might enjoy reading.

http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/050323_gender_selection.html

Boy or Girl: Which Gender Baby Would You Pick?
By Bjorn Carey LiveScience Staff Writer

Given the opportunity to choose the sex of their baby, women are just as likely to choose pink socks as blue, a new study shows.

"Sex selection is a topic that’s almost taboo for physicians to talk about," said Tarun Jain, a reproductive specialist at the University of Illinois, Chicago. "Yet, it’s important to understand patient interest in non-medical sex selection and adequately address the ethical and social implications before the cat is out of the bag. Prior to this study, there has been no data to indicate what the demand might be."

Of the 561 women who participated in the study, 229 said they would like to choose the sex of a future child. Among these 229 there was no greater for demand for boys or girls.

However, the data showed that women who already had one or more children of one sex would prefer for their next child to be of the opposite sex to create gender balance within the family.

The findings are published in the March issue of Fertility and Sterility.

Selecting for sex

There are two methods of sex selection being used in the United States today.

One is sperm separation – the concept being that sperm with an X chromosome (for girls) weigh a little more than sperm with a Y chromosome (for boys). Because of this slight difference, the sperm can be sorted out and prepared for a simple insemination procedure.

Sex selection by sperm separation has a success rate of about 90 percent for girls and about 70 percent for boys.

The other common method is pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD, which is a form of in vitro fertilization, where embryos are prepared in a test tube before implantation in a woman’s uterus. Unlike traditional in vitro fertilization, doctors take a few cells from each prepared PGD embryo to determine its sex, and they only implant embryos of the desired sexes.

This method has a success rate of nearly 100 percent, but is more expensive and much more physically intrusive for a woman compared to sperm separation, researchers say. Neither method will cause any harm to the developing baby, they say.

"In our study, patients were about equal on which procedure they would prefer," Jian told LiveScience. "PGD is tougher, but maybe patients don’t want that slight uncertainty that comes with sperm separation."

Banned in UK

Sex selection for non-medical reasons is banned in the United Kingdom – a decision that was favored by 80 percent of the population – but there are currently no laws to stop American parents-to-be from employing the technology.

The President’s Council on Bioethics keeps a record of the ethical aspects of sex selection for non-medical purposes, but it has not issued an opinion. Early concerns are that gender balances will be altered and that, in the case of PGD, human embryos will be wasted.

"One of the main fears is that it may propagate gender stereotypes," said Jian. "Primarily that there would be a greater desire for a male child."

However, in Jian’s study there was "no stronger preference for boys or girls." Even women with no children were split down the middle, showing equal preference for boys and girls.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine is no longer concerned that society will create an artificial gender imbalance and approves of sperm separation as a method for gender balancing within a family. While the society believes PGD to be safe, it is also concerned about the discarding of unwanted human embryos and has backed away from its earlier support of this method.

Jian hopes that his study will bring the topic of sex selection more into the public eye. He suggests it is important for infertility clinics and society to determine what acceptable uses of non-medical sex selection are as these technologies become more and more mainstream.