How to Select the Gender of a Child.

majority of parents hope for a healthy baby above all. You can still want this and hope for a specific gender as well. There are things you can do that some believe will help you select the The gender of a child naturally. A lot of them are old wives' tales and myths, but the idea is fun. Families may decide to attempt to choose the gender of their child for a variety of reasons
, ranging from family balancing to genetic issues. For many years, people have relied upon old wives' tales and natural methods to try to influence gender. Today there are technically advanced methods that have been proven successful in helping families conceive a child of the gender they desire. • Couples who wish to attempt to select the gender of their child can choose low-cost, at-home, natural methods that have only anecdotal success or expensive but clinically proven high-tech methods performed by doctors in a laboratory. Scientific methods involve using assisted reproductive techniques (ART) such as intrauterine insemination or in vitro fertilization to get pregnant. These technologies can be medically complicated and expensive, with BabyCenter estimating that fees range from $5,000 to more than $10,000 per attempt. Low-Tech Natural Methods • One of the best-known natural methods for gender selection is the Shettles Method. In his bestselling book "How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby," Shettles claims a 75 to 90 percent success rate. By timing intercourse at various points in a woman's cycle, Shettles believes you can boost your odds of conceiving the gender you desire. Diet plays a part in several at-home gender-selection methods such as Lydia Pinkham's Herbal Compound and the Preconception Gender Diet. Both of these methods rely upon the premise that by adding certain supplements or eating specific foods, you can change your body's pH levels, making you more likely to conceive a baby of a specific gender. High-Tech Methods • For the first time in history, couples can choose advanced scientific methods that have a proven success rate in helping them conceive the gender they desire. Micro Sort sperm sorting, only available in the United States, is a method in which scientists separate X sperm and Y sperm. According to the Micro Sort laboratory, this method has a success rate of 88 percent for girls and 74 percent for boys. According to In-Gender.com, the only method with an almost 100 percent success rate is pre implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), in which only embryos of the desired gender are implanted in a woman's uterus. This method can only be used with in vitro fertilization (IVF), which makes it extremely expensive and invasive. Considerations • The ethics of gender selection are a controversial topic, with many scientists and ethics panels in disagreement as to whether the use of high-tech gender methods is ethical. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has called all elective gender-selection methods unethical; the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) decided that pre fertilization gender selection, such as Micro Sort sperm sorting, was ethical while post fertilization gender selection, such as pre implantation genetic diagnosis was not