生男生女可以選擇嗎?大綱

There was a time when almost everything about your baby was a surprise, at least until you met in the delivery room. But now, "you can select the sex of your baby," says Robin Elise Weiss, Ph.D. "And there are a couple ways to do it."

至少在產房生下寶寶之前，曾有一段時間有關寶寶的一切都令你驚喜。但現在，"你可以選擇寶寶的性別，"羅賓·愛麗絲·維斯博士說道。"而且有好幾種方法都能做到這一點。"

Sure, in the deep, dark corners of the Internet, you may have read that putting a spoon under your bed when you're having sex means you'll have a girl or that trying to conceive during a full moon will result in a boy. Well, no. Those are message board based on folklore and shaky science, Weiss says. Of course, there are no guarantees - but here are some options that, though not 100 percent certain, are at least more solid than doing a baby dance around your living room.

當然，在互聯網深處的黑暗角落，你可能看到過這樣一種說法：當你上牀的時候，在牀下放把勺子你就會生女孩兒，或者試圖在滿月時懷孕，就能生男孩兒。好吧，根本就不是這樣的。這些留言都來自於民間傳說和站不住腳的證據，維斯說道。當然，無法保證--但下列的一些觀點，雖然不是百分百可信，但至少比在客廳裏跳寶寶舞更有效。

In Vitro Fertilization

體外受精

The only truly method of choosing your baby's sex is through IVF, says Elizabeth Kennard, M.D., director of the Reproductive and Endocrinology and Infertility division at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. You may think of IVF strictly within the context of infertility, but some women choose to do it for "family balancing" purposes, too.

唯一能真正選擇寶寶性別的方法就是通過體外受精，俄亥俄州立大學維克斯納醫學中心的生殖與內分泌不孕症部門主任伊麗莎白·肯納德博士說道。你可能認爲只有在不育的情況下才會選擇體外受精，但有些女性會爲了"家庭平衡"而選擇這種方式。

The process of IVF works like this: You start taking fertility drugs so your ovaries produce multiple eggs (typically, just one egg is released during ovulation). Then the eggs are removed from your body with a thin needle. The eggs are then fertilized with sperm in a petri dish, and then reinserted into your uterus. Your doctor will know what chromosomes each egg contains, so you can choose to be implanted with a certain sex.

體外受精的過程是這樣的：你開始服用生育藥，這樣你的卵巢就會排出大量卵子（通常，排卵期間只能排出一個卵子）。隨後用一根非常細的取卵針從身體裏取出這些卵子。之後在培養皿中使其受精，再移植回你的子宮內。你的醫生知道每個卵子中含有什麼染色體，所以你可以選擇將特定性別的受精卵移植到體內。

Ericsson Method

Ericsson方法

This method involves separating male and female sperm from each other. How exactly do you "catch" sperm of a specific sex? A sperm sample is placed in thick fluid. Since male sperm swim faster than female sperm, you can separate out the super swimmers from the slower ones. Then you're inseminated with the sperm that are the sex of your choice. It's less invasive than IVF, but still costs money (prices vary based on where you live, but average around $600) and not every state has a clinic where this procedure is done. Proponents of the method put its success rate around 70 percent, but not all fertility experts agree, as some are skeptical about any methodologies aside from IVF.

該方法需要將男性精子與女性精子分開。那你又如何準確的"抓到"特定性別的精子呢？將精子樣品置於濃稠流體中，由於男性精子比女性精子游的快，你就能將超級精子與較慢的精子區分開。然後你選擇寶寶的性別開始受精。這比體外受精的攻擊性小，但仍然要花一筆錢（不同地區的價格也不一樣，但平均是600美元左右），而且並不是所有的州都有能完成該程序的診所。該方法的支持者說成功率在70%左右，但並不是所有的生育專家都認同這一方法，因爲有些專家對除了體外受精的一切其它方法都持懷疑態度。