Freedom of Understanding

All couples participating in the PGD programme at The Rainsbury Clinic need to understand - and be reassured by – a few key points:

The technique is highly reliable in determining the gender of embryos but, as with almost every medical and scientific technique, there are no absolutes. In practice we are confident that viable pregnancies achieved through the program will result in babies of the chosen gender.

It is important for couples to understand that the last part of the treatment - embryo biopsy - cannot be carried out in the UK. This procedure is performed at an associate clinic abroad. The whole process takes approximately one month - three weeks of monitoring in the UK and one week at an associate clinic abroad.

The process of carrying out gender selection on newly formed eight-cell embryos presents minimal risk of damaging the quality or viability of the embryo. At this early stage of life, the eight cells represent the life support system of the untouched nucleus of the embryo which contains all the genetic material that will eventually become the foetus. The removal of a single cell of this supporting material has no adverse effect on the foetus' successful development.

While the programme is expected to produce good pregnancy success rates (based on the 'normal' fertility of its participating couples), it should not be expected to do substantially better than nature itself - which produces an approximate 20% pregnancy rate* following normal unprotected intercourse. In practice, we expect to achieve 20% from a single treatment cycle - rising to a maximum 45% success rate after three cycles.

These rates are per single embryo transferred and increase significantly if 2 or more embryos are transferred.