You are 3- 6% more likely to have a baby boy than a girl when using IVF to conceive. IVF increases the odds of a boy from 51 in 100 when conceived naturally to 56 in 100 with IVF. Up until recently, we have not known why. Recent research is shedding light on why exactly IVF produces more boys than girls, and suggest possible solutions.
A team of researchers in China found that female IVF embryos had a lower survival rate and higher rate of growth defects. These defects resembled symptoms of impaired X chromosome inactivation.
Males have an X and Y chromosome, while females have two X chromosomes. The extra copy of the X chromosome in females is switched off during early embryo development by an epigenetic process known as “X chromosome inactivation”. The researchers found that X chromosome inactivation was impaired in female IVF embryos.
Research now continues on how to correct this gender skew in IVF. One possibility being explored is supplementing the IVF growth culture with the epigenetic modifier retinoic acid. Research so far is only on mouse models, and not available for humans at this time.
“To the best of our knowledge, retinoic acid is not used in IVF procedures for humans,” Tian said. “It should be noted that there are some differences in the mechanisms of X chromosome inactivation between mouse and humans, so whether the X chromosome inactivation status is impaired in human IVF embryos needs to be further determined. In addition, risk evaluation is required before the clinical application of retinoic acid in IVF.”
Separate research has shown that when the IVF cycle includes intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), a process where a single sperm is selected and inserted into the egg manually by the embryologist, more girls are born. Clearly there is a lot we still do not know about gender and IVF.
Other Creating a Family resources you will enjoy:
- Good News about Health of Kids Conceived through IVF
- How IVF Affects the Health of the Children Conceived
- In IVF, Questions About ‘Mosaic’ Embryos
Did you know that you were more likely to have a baby boy with IVF?
it probably has to do with the same reason in nature – more males are born during times of abundance. it could be that people who can afford ivf are in a higher category of abundance. However the role of X-chromosome is very interesting. It would be true both in IVF and Nature, no?
I have two chromosome tested embryos frozen and soon to be ferilization. I believe the smaller embryo is thought to be a a girl Do I have to put the other larger higher grading one fertilized first. In ontario can I pick which embryo to implant
Hello Patricia,
Thanks for reading. We are not medical experts and thus we highly recommend that you work through the questions you posed with your reproductive specialist to come to the plan that is right for you and your goals.
Best of luck to you!
Hello
Does IVF really works for gender selection?
I have one girl child and we want to have our family completed by having boy child
So wanted to know whether this works?
I think you might misunderstand the point of this post. It’s a report of a study which explains WHY IVF is more likely to result in the birth of a boy. It’s not really about gender selection. That’s a different conversation. We cannot offer medical advice about your specific case as we are not medical professionals. This is a question that you would need to discuss with your reproductive specialist, to look at the options for your family.
What u are asking is possible but it’s banned in india…the post is about something else entirely and even without selection with IVF u have a greater chance of having a male child…about 12% more chance of having a boy with IVF than Girl according to this article
Hello
Does IVF really works for gender selection?
I have one girl child and we want to have our family completed by having boy child
So wanted to know whether this works?
Also we tend to have alkaline foods will it be solution to have baby boy ?
Let me know soon
Those questions are ones that would be best fielded by your own personal physician or reproductive specialist.
Hello,I am 37 yo and have a 4 years old boy with a successful IVF cycle(at his time 2012 was no PGD)…while he was 3yo we started another IVF cycle which I had one girl and one boy embryos with the PGD, but after the transfer of the 2 FEs I had miscarriage…Last February we had another IVF cycle with the PGD which we got 3 boys embryos( with great grades) and 5 girls embryos but all with chromosomal abnormality!! We transferred the 2 boys, and I got pregnant with twin boys at the beginning, then at 7 weeks one of the twin got splitted but didn’t survive and got shrinked..so now I am 10 weeks pregnant with my second boy and due on January 28,2018!! We want to have a baby girl with another IVF cycle, how can we increase the chance of having girl embryos with the next IVF cycle.
Thanks
First, I’m so sorry for your miscarriages and so happy that you are now pregnant with your second child! We are not doctors and this is a good question for your infertility doctor. To oversimplify, all the woman’s eggs carry the X chromosome. The man produces X and Y chromosomes evenly. If the Y chromosome fertilizes the egg a boy embryo is created. If the X chromosome fertilizes the egg a girl embryo is created. (I realize that you already knew that, but it helps with my explanation.) The most common way of gender selection is to genetically test the embryos and to only transfer the preferred gender, which is what you have tried to do the last two IVF cycles. Anything you can do to have more mature eggs to retrieve in theory would increase the odds of having more eggs to fertilize, which in turn would increase the possibility that an X sperm will be successful. However, your doctor is probably already doing that and to be honest, your age is working against you. You might talk with your reproductive endocrinologist about doing an egg retrieval and freezing the embryos sooner than you want to try again just because you will be getting older and want to get as many good eggs as possible.
I have heard of sperm spinning/sorting to separate the X and Y sperm. I haven’t done the research, but I don’t know how successful it is. Most infertility doctors that I’ve spoken with say that PGD is more effective at selecting gender so they prefer to use that technique. However, I haven’t spoken to that many docs and there is likely good research on the efficacy of sperm sorting.
This last cycle of IVF with frozen eggs produced 3 boys for us. One is still a “tot-sicle,” waiting to be born. Adding retionolic acid is an interesting idea. I’ll watch for more research on that topic.
I’m just starting my research now on IVF. I see where you said it produced 3 boys have you had any yet? Are they positive they are boys? I want to learn everything before starting this journey
Thank you so much for all the research and your stories.