RSC now Offers Gender-Selection Technique for Hopeful Parents

Couples can choose child’s gender with less ethically charged method at Reproductive Science Center of the San Francisco Bay Area


SAN RAMON, CALIFORNIA (May 12, 2009) – In response to growing numbers of couples who want to choose the sex of their next child, the Reproductive Science Center of the San Francisco Bay Area (RSC) announced today that it now is offering an alternative gender-selection technique with fewer moral and ethical dilemmas.

The Ericsson method of determining the gender of a baby is based on manipulation of sperm—not an embryo. According to the developer, this technique offers approximately a 70-percent chance of success of obtaining the desired gender at conception.

The Ericsson method was selected by the Bay Area IVF specialists because for many families and medical ethicists, it sidesteps the creation of embryos that might face eventual destruction if they are not of the desired gender.

The technique employs a centrifugation process, known as “sperm sorting,” which allows embryologists to choose sperm with X- or Y- bearing chromosomes that provide three in four odds of determining the correct gender. The selected sperm is then used to create the embryo through in vitro fertilization (IVF).

“For parents who may already have several children or the same gender and want a child of the opposite sex, this method may ease their ethical and moral concerns,” said Dr. Kristen Ivani, RSC’s laboratory director.

“We’re part of a growing number of fertility clinics who are helping couples exercise greater reproductive choices,” said Ivani, “although RSC is one of the few full-service IVF centers in the Bay Area that offers gender selection in combination with a complete range of diagnostic and fertility care.”

Another attractive feature of the Ericsson procedure is cost: only $1,000 for RSC patients, compared to other gender selection methods, such as preimplantation genetic diagnosis, which can cost $5,000 or more.

Successful conception with insemination depends on patient age, quality of sperm and eggs, and health of uterus and tubes. According to numerous studies, success with insemination ranges from 5 to 25 percent in infertile patients and 15 to 85 percent when used in combination with IVF.

In the early 70's, scientists discovered that sperm samples with high concentrations of either X or Y bearing sperm could be obtained. Sperm carrying an X chromosome produces females and sperm carrying a Y chromosome produces males.

In 1975, Ronald J. Ericsson, Ph.D., began studies to determine whether enriched sperm samples would result in offspring of a desired gender. Today this procedure is widely accepted and used throughout the United States and worldwide.