Dr. Daniel A. Potter, MD, FACOG, is a Reproductive Endocrinologist at Huntington Reproductive Center in Laguna Hills, California. HRC offers gender selection with MicroSort and PGD, and is a world-renowned infertility research center.
I am pleased to answer any questions that users might have regarding MicroSort and/or IVF for gender selection, so go ahead and send them.... I am back from 'Ski Week' which is a mid-winter week off for kids in my area. We went skiing in Deer Valley, Utah with several other families. What a beautiful place and boy did we get some snow. My 5 year old was completely fearless going banzai down the blue runs. I finally got her to slow down and start doing some turns. People are always interested in what I do and I met a number of people in Deer Valley that were interested in gender selection. It is always amazing to me that highly educated people have no idea what so ever that gender selection techniques that work are actually available. Increasing awareness is the key to increasing acceptance. I will start by answering the most common question posed to me by patients interested in gender selection: Does PGD decrease IVF success rates? The short answer is ' no'. The truth is that PGD does not seem to lower pregnancy rates in experienced hands. Nor does it improve pregnancy rates. In my experience, IVF/PGD pregnancy rates are the same as IVF only pregnancy rates for patients of a given age and peak FSH level and even higher in gender selection patients than in the general fertility population. Of the 300+ PGD cycles done at HRC in 2006, more than half were done solely for gender selection in patients with no fertility problems. Pregnancy rates are obviously going to be better in a fertile population like gender selection patients than the general fertility population. The way pregnancy rates are reported is misleading so beware. The whole idea of giving patients access to pregnancy rates is so that they can predict the probability that they will be successful in their own cycle. The problem is that very few patients will have the actual pregnancy rate listed for their age group. That is because the data as reported by SART includes all patients in a given age group regardless of their prognosis, peak FSH, number of embryos transferred or indication for IVF. For example: if pregnancy rate for a clinic in <35 year olds is 42%, what does this mean to you? Answer: nothing. YOUR pregnancy chances can only be determined with a complete assessment of your ovarian reserve (Clomid challenge test for example), your age and indication for IVF. The pregnancy rate for <35 yo patient with a normal Clomid challenge test (CCT) is twice that of patients with abnormal CCT results. Which group are you in? Pregnancy rates for <35 yo with normal CCT and no fertility problems (i.e. gender selection) is 10% higher than the rate for <35 yo with normal CCT that have never been pregnant. Yet all of these categories are lumped together by SART so the "pregnancy rate" is really an average of the good and bad prognosis patients and represents a number between these two realities. Send questions and comments. Talk to you soon. Dr. Potter
About Dr. Potter
Hi and thank you for your interest. I am Dr. Daniel Potter. I am a board certified in both Reproductive Endocrinology/Infertility and Obstetrics and Gynecology. I am currently the Medical Director and a principal at the Huntington Reproductive Center (HRC). HRC is one the larger fertility programs in the USA and has 6 offices in southern California. I perform all of my clinical work in the Fullerton and Laguna Hills offices. I am also the Medical Director of MicroSort West. The MicroSort West facility is located at my Laguna Hills office and is one of only two MicroSort facilities in the world. My third and final job is Laboratory Director of the Gene Security Network (www.genesecurity.net), a company looking to revolutionize PGD. As some of you know, I have written a book for infertile couples. Here is the link if anyone would like to see it:
; One of my passions in life is to help couples achieve the dream of parenthood that they have, including those that dream of a balanced family. Gender selection through fresh MicroSort and/or PGD has always played a huge role in my practice. It would be my pleasure to be your personal physician for this issue. To obtain a rapid appointment, please contact Cindy Anderson directly (cynthiaa@havingbabies.com) and state that you are from in-gender. Outside of medicine and science, live with my wife and two daughters (born through IVF) in Laguna Beach, California. I am currently trying to improve at beach volleyball, tennis and surfing. I enjoy coaching my girls teams, music, traveling and wine.