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Kim Kardashian's Foolproof Plan To Have A Baby Boy

Is choosing your baby's gender right?

Kim Kardashian announced via Twitter this week that she is expecting a baby boy with her husband Kanye West, and a new report indicates that the upcoming baby’s gender was no surprise to the expecting parents.

A source told Us Weekly that the couple engaged in the controversial practice of gender selection, only implanting male embryos when they did IVF.

The reality star has reportedly selected the gender of her second child. [Rex]
The reality star has reportedly selected the gender of her second child. [Rex]

According to the source, who the magazine reports is close to the family, “Kanye loves Nori more than anything, but to make his world complete, he wanted a little boy, an heir.” Kardashian has always wanted a son and a daughter, too, the source said.

The process of gender selection, which entails undergoing IVF and doing preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) – a “fairly invasive procedure” in which doctors take several cells out of an embryo and do a DNA analysis of all 23 pairs of chromosomes – is “really controversial,” according to Dr. Eve Feinberg, medical director at Fertility Centers of Illinois’ Center for Fertility Preservation.

“Some clinics have taken the stance that that they don’t even address gender. Other clinics say ‘we will give you that information but it won’t alter the selection of what gender we will implant,’” she tells Yahoo Parenting.

The reasons why couples undergo gender selection are varied, Feinberg says. For some parents who are carriers of sex-linked diseases, there are medical indications for the practice.

“If you are a carrier of hemophilia and you have a boy, there is a 50-50 chance that boy will be affected, and it is much rarer in girls,” Feinberg says. “People who are carriers of the BRCA mutation [which increases the likelihood of breast and ovarian cancer], if they find out all their embryos are carriers, they may elect to transfer a carrier boy rather than a girl because there is a markedly reduced risk of breast cancer and no ovarian cancer risk.”

Does opting to have a boy say something about Kimye's daughter North? [Rex]
Does opting to have a boy say something about Kimye's daughter North? [Rex]

But some couples choose gender selection for more personal reasons, and that’s where the controversy lies.

“In Asian cultures it is very desired to have a boy, and we have seen couples who have come in because they have terminated pregnancies that are girls and want a boy,” Feinberg says. “I also have couples who come in who don’t have infertility but want to do what is called ‘family balancing,’ where they have two or three children of one gender and want the opposite,” Feinberg says.

Electing to do IVF when it’s not medically indicated – because a couple doesn’t suffer from infertility, or because less aggressive fertility measures would be equally as effective – is something that some doctors are unwilling to do.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine issued a statement this year acknowledging the controversy around the practice, and left the decision up to individual doctors, stating that “practitioners offering assisted reproductive services are under no ethical obligation to provide or refuse to provide nonmedically indicated methods of sex selection.”

A statement issued by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in 2007 went even further.

“The Committee on Ethics supports the practice of offering patients procedures for the purpose of preventing serious sex-linked genetic diseases. However, the committee opposes meeting requests for sex selection for personal and family reasons, including family balancing, because of the concern that such requests may ultimately support sexist practices.”

Feinberg notes that when it comes to gender selection, the practice does seem “more boy-weighted.”

Gender selection is becoming more and more popular. [Rex]
Gender selection is becoming more and more popular. [Rex]

Gender selection has really only been offered since 2007, but Feinberg says it is increasingly popular. “I think as patients get more savvy, and as they understand what technology can and can’t do, there becomes an element of autonomy that patients feel they have the right to choose different treatment options,” she says.

Kardashian has spoken publicly about her struggles to conceive with baby No. 2, so there is no indication that she only got IVF in order to select her baby’s gender. Still, including the genetic screening and gender selection adds $5,000 to $7,000 to the cost of fertility treatment, which runs about $12,000, not including the cost of medication, according to Feinberg.

For some women, this extra cost is worth it. “PGS has benefits – it does increase the success of IVF in women over 35,” Feinberg points out. “In those women there is data to show it reduces the rate of miscarriage.”

Kardashian, who is 34, may not have needed the testing. And even with gender selection process, a parent isn’t always guaranteed the sex they are hoping for – as a patient’s embryos may be all boys or girls.

“Sometimes you don’t get what you want, and all your embryos are one gender or another,” Feinberg says. But if an embryo of the desired gender is transferred and implants, the baby’s gender is guaranteed – making it a foolproof plan.

In Kardashian’s case, everything seems to have worked out in her favor. As the source told Us Weekly, “Kim would have happily taken a healthy baby, but being able to choose the sex is the cherry on top!”

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