Want A Boy? ICSI Might Not Be For You!

If you're hoping to conceive a boy, then the infertility treatment known as ICSI (intro cytoplastic sperm injection) may not be for you.

That's the conclusion of one group of researchers who found that the number of boys born via this procedure was proportionally lower than when conceived by Mother Nature.

The study, conducted by Barbara Lake of Michigan State University was just published in the journal Fertility and Sterility. Here she documents that just under 50% of the babies born via ICSI were boys. In nature, there are approximately 105 boys born for every 100 girls.

During the ICSI procedure doctors extract sperm from the father and inject it directly into the eggs of the mother, which are then placed in an incubator with hopes that fertilization occurs. The procedure is used primarily to treat male fertility problems such as low sperm count or slow moving sperm.

Once the eggs are fertilized, the resulting embryos are placed into the mother's uterus, where, if all goes well, they attach and begin growing.

Fewer Boys - Not Such a Mystery
Although it may seem like a bit of a mystery as to why this procedure results in fewer boys, according to at least one fertility expert, it's an easy mystery to solve.
"There are two types of sperm - one that carries the male gene and one that carries the female gene; generally speaking, the sperm that carries the female gene is heartier and lives longer, " says Dr. Niels Lauersen, director of GettingPregnantNow.org

Prior to performing the ICSI procedure, the embryologist looks into the microscope to choose the healthiest and heartiest looking sperm for the injection into the egg.

" Not surprisingly," says Lauersen, " in this study more than 50% of the time, the healthiest and heartiest sperm were apparently the female sperm -which is what accounts for the higher number of girls being born."

Because only a small number of babies are born each year by the ICSI procedure, there is not likely to cause any major shift in the male-female ratio of the general population. Still, Lake cautions that ICSI should only be used when deemed medically necessary.

For more information on the ICSI procedure visit GettingPregnantNow.org. Or read about ICSI along with many other fertility treatments for men and women in Getting Pregnant: What Couples Need To Know Now.

Copyright by Colette Bouchez 2009 - All Rights Reserved.
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