A French scientist said Wednesday that he had devised a method to allow parents to choose the sex of their children.
Patrick Schoun, a researcher based in LaSeyne sur Mer in southern France, has devised a natural gender selection program called Selnas that he says guarantees parents the baby of their choice - boy or girl."It is almost 100 percent effective," he told a news conference Wednesday.
The Selnas method is based on determining the alternating negative or positive polarity of the membrane of the woman's ovum, or egg. When the ovum is positively charged, it attracts sperm with the `x' (girl) chromosome, and when it is negatively charged it attracts the `y' (boy) chromosome.
Using sophisticated computer programming and imputing specific details about the woman's age, blood type and dates of first and last menstrual periods, Schoun says he can produce a personalized calendar of a woman's ovum polarity giving details about the best time to try to conceive a girl or boy.
Although details of the Selnas method have not been published in any medical journal, tests in France on 155 couples have proven successful in 153 cases, he said.
Information produced by Right Baby, which will market the computerized calendar in Britain, Africa and the Caribbean, claimed 75 mothers in the French trial achieved pregnancy in four months and nearly half were pregnant in six months.
The Selnas method, which was launched in Europe Wednesday, will be available worldwide.
Dr. George Hogewind, a consultant gynecologist at the London Gynecology and Fertility Center, said Schoun's research into the charging of the sperm and ovum is correct, but he said that a trial of just 155 women was not a large enough study or representation.
"The second thing that concerns me is that of the 155 couples they studied, quite surprisingly none of them had a fertility problem, and we know that infertility affects one in six couples," he said.
Hogewind said if Schoun's program works, it will reduce the number of selective abortions and bring hope to thousands of families, but he called for a much larger study to prove it is effective.