Genetics,
Fertility, and Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis
Conditions such as abnormal deletions or rearrangements of chromosomes,
which affects the genetic information, or an abnormal number of chromosomes (aneuploidy) can lead to early miscarriage.
Advances in genetic testing employed by our NY fertility clinic are not limited
to amniocentesis or chorionic villi sampling (CVS). These
procedures are usually performed in the second trimester
of an already established pregnancy. Today, we can perform
preimplantation transfer/genetic diagnosis (PGD) thus virtually
eliminating the chance of transferring an abnormal embryo(s) for the disease screened.
In PGD, the embryos, resulting from an IVF cycle, are examined
by biopsy for certain genetic diseases. Many of these genetic
diseases result from an abnormal number of chromosomes or
chromosomes with an abnormal structure. Embryos which carry
the disease are not transferred to the mother's uterus in the IVF cycle.
Moreover, one could look and select the
gender of the baby for the purpose of avoiding illnesses
or for balancing families, sexing of their children (e.g.
family has 2 boys and want the future child to be a girl.
Some diseases, such as hemophilia, are carried on the sex
chromosomes and can thus only be transferred to a child of the affected gender.
Sex selection is performed by additional
procedures such as intrauterine insemination (IUI) with
"enriched sperm" with the selected gender. More
"Y" sperm for boys and more "X sperm"
for girls. Gender selection can also be accomplished using
PGD where only the embryos of the desired sex are transferred
to the mother.
Directions to Our New York Fertility Clinics
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