Would you like a boy or a girl?

Infertility treatment today, or as it is known in the medical world as “reproductive medicine” has made huge advances in recent times since the very first artificially inseminated baby, Louise Brown was born in the UK back in 1978. Since then more than 5 million childless couples have been blessed with a child of their own and IVF treatment today is as common as any other elective treatment from plastic surgery to cosmetic dentistry.

Nowadays more and more people are choosing to select the sex of their children for a variety of reasons and the most effective procedure available today is PGD (pre-implantation genetic diagnosis). PGD technique is the only method that can promise 100% success for gender selection. However, PGD can only be used in combination with IVF treatment (in-vitro fertilization).

The PGD Process

PGD is a step added to an IVF cycle, which enables us to choose which embryos will be implanted into the mother.

• In an IVF cycle, eggs collected from the mother are fertilized with the father’s sperm in the lab.

• The resulting embryos are incubated for 3 days, until they have grown to 6 to 10 cells each.

• Next, the PGD procedure is performed. Guided by a powerful microscope, a microscopically tiny, hollow glass needle is used to penetrate the embryo’s outer covering, and remove a single cell.

• Genetic testing is performed on the removed cell. Because every cell in our bodies — starting from the moment of conception — contains a complete copy of our DNA in its chromosomes, analysis of this single cell can foretell the embryo’s future: whether it will have a genetic disease, chromosomal abnormalities, and whether it will become a boy or a girl.

• Using this information, healthy embryos are selected of the sex of the child you would like, male or female, and implanted into the mother.

If you decide to use PGD for sex selection with Dr. Suchada, her choice of PGD is one that screens for all chromosome abnormalities at the same time. By analyzing all the chromosomes with Micro Array technology, you may have a significantly higher chance of conceiving and carrying the pregnancy to nine months, than by analyzing only the sex chromosomes (chromosomes X and Y) and/or fewer than 12 chromosomes. It is in Dr. Suchada’s experience that after three cycles of IVF over 85% of her patients brings home a baby.

Dr. Suchada Mongkolchaipak

Dr. Suchada underwent medical training at Chiang Mai University, Thailand where she graduated as a doctor. She then completed her medical specialty in the field of Obstetrics & Gynecology along with Reproductive Medicine and has been specializing in reproductive medicine since 2001.

She also has a master’s degree in Clinical Embryology and Andrology from the Jones Institute Medical School in the United States. The Jones Institute is widely acknowledged as a world leader in clinical and scientific research in fertility problem treatment and has trained many prominent physicians and scientists.

Dr. Suchada’s clinical expertise includes infertility treatment, IVF, Embryology, Reproductive medicine and Genetic Science. To make an appointment to see Dr. Suchada or for more information on the PGD technique then please contact Gavin on 089 – 7500293 or email [email protected]