Most parents will tell you that the gender of their unborn child does not matter to them as long as the child is born healthy. But there are parents who truly desire to have a child of a particular gender. There can be many reasons that parents want to choose the gender of their child.

Some parents want to conceive a child of one sex based on the gender of the children that they already have. A family that already has one girl may want to have another so that they can share a bedroom or pass down clothes. Or they may want to have a boy so that they can have one child of each gender.

Parents may select a gender based on the health history of the family. If there is a history of a sex-linked genetic disorder, such as hemophilia or Duchenne muscular dystrophy, then they may wish to have a child of the protected gender. In the case of hemophilia, parents would want to have girls because hemophilia is an x-linked recessive disorder.

Some parents want to have a boy because they have heard that raising boys is easier, or they have good experiences with boys in their families or bad experiences with girls in their past. Parents often want to conceive baby girls for the exact opposite reasons. The truth is, every child is different, no matter their gender. Parents who have children of the same gender will tell you that the children were not the same.

Gender selection has raised some controversy. Some people do not think that anyone should use any method to try to conceive a baby of a chosen sex because it is tampering with nature. Others are concerned that choosing the gender of a child is only the tip of the iceberg and that parents will start trying to conceive designer babies. Proponents of physician intervention based gender selection point out the benefits that have come with the technology, such as being able to avoid having a child affected with a genetic disorder.

Depending on the reasons for wanting to select the gender of their child, parents engage in various methods to try to achieve their goal. These can range from something as simple as eating a special diet, to the more complicated task of timing conception based on ovulation, to the very complicated sperm sorting or IVF procedure. Generally, the more complicated and expensive a method of gender selection is, the more accurate it will be.