Medical science: Sex selection method launched

A new method which claims to allow parents to choose the sex of their children was launched yesterday, but came under immediate fire from fertility experts who said its effectiveness was far from proven.

French researcher Patrick Schoun has devised a natural gender selection programme called Selnas based on determining the alternating 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. Although details of the method have not been published in any medical journal, tests on 155 couples were said to have been successful in 153 cases.