Custom design your baby

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

A US clinic has sparked controversy by offering would-be parents the chance to select traits like the eye and hair colour of their offspring.

The LA Fertility Institutes run by Dr Jeff Steinberg, a pioneer of IVF in the 1970s, expects a trait-selected baby to be born next year.

His clinic also offers sex selection.

UK fertility experts are angered that the service will distract attention from how the same technology can protect against inherited disease. The science is based on a lab technique called preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD.

This involves testing a cell taken from a very early embryo before it is put into the mother's womb.

Doctors then select an embryo free from rogue genes - or in this case an embryo with the desired physical traits such as blonde hair and blue eyes - to continue the pregnancy, and discard any others.

Dr Steinberg said couples might seek to use the clinic's services for both medical and cosmetic reasons.

For example, a couple might want to have a baby with a darker complexion to help guard against a skin cancer if they already had a child who had developed a melanoma. But others might just want a boy with blonde hair. His clinic is offering this cosmetic selection to patients already having genetic screening for abnormal chromosome conditions in their embryos.

"Not all patients will qualify for these tests and we make NO guarantees as to 'perfect prediction' of things such as eye colour or hair colour," says the clinic's website.

Dr Steinberg said: "I would not say this is a dangerous road. It's an uncharted road."

He said the capability to offer such services had been around for years, but had been ignored by the medical community.

"It's time for everyone to pull their heads out of the sand."

Slippery slope

But Dr Gillian Lockwood, a UK fertility expert and member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists' ethics committee, questioned whether is was morally right to be using the science in this way.

"If it gets to the point where we can decide which gene or combination of genes are responsible for blue eyes or blonde hair, what are you going to do with all those other embryos that turn out like me to be ginger with green eyes?"

She warned against "turning babies into commodities that you buy off the shelf."

Josephine Quintavalle of Comment on Reproductive Ethics said: "This is the inevitable slippery slope of a fertility process which results in many more embryos being created than can be implanted. Choices will always have to be made. Do you choose octuplets or the ones with the prettiest noses?"

In the UK, sex selection is banned and choices are currently permitted only in relationship to the baby's health.

Italian fertility law does not permit the creation of surplus embryos or selective testing. Ms Quintavalle said that was "one sure way to avoid the slippery slope".

Meanwhile, new legislation in the UK, due to come in on 6 April, will allow IVF mothers to name anyone as "father" on the birth certificate - even another woman. The only restriction on naming a second parent will be if they are close blood relatives or if the second person does not agree.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7918296.stm

[Donna A 4]

i wanted my daughter to have my dark brown hair and her dads blue eyes. i got the oposite...his sandy blonde hair and my hazel eyes. probably a good thing as she is beautiful.

[Jasman0717 9]

Keep this away from octomom

[Peikko 1,575]

Sheesh, where's the fun in knowing how the kid will turn out before it's born? I didn't even want to know if it was a boy or a girl. The surprise was fabulous.

[mkg265 2]

I wanted to have baby Jude Law but I baby Ethan Hawke instead.....lame....

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Sheesh, where's the fun in knowing how the kid will turn out before it's born? I didn't even want to know if it was a boy or a girl. The surprise was fabulous.

Was it a boy or a girl?

[Peikko 1,575]

FP, you know the answer to that you wazzuck!

[one...two...tree 2,762]

FP, you know the answer to that you wazzuck!

Oh boy...sorry. I'm off my meds in case you didn't notice.

[GaryC 7]

Watch Gattica to see the final outcome of this trend.

[Peikko 1,575]

I have a son, he's my number one blond favourite in all the world, and of course I am totally biased. I would never have have guessed I would have a blond kid, blond with blue/grey eyes. Very, very strange, but of course totally fabulous. He's 10 now - they get more difficult as they get older...

Edited March 4, 2009 by Madame Cleo

[msu17 0]

No good for us. My whole family is blonde/blue and my husband is blonde/blue. Unless the milkman stops by, pretty sure we're having a blonde/blue kid. If you are a parent doing that, I'd say think long and hard about the money you are wasting on stupid ####### and what you could spend it on instead.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I have a son, he's my number one blond favourite in all the world, and of course I am totally biased. I would never have have guessed I would have a blond kid, blond with blue/grey eyes. Very, very strange, but of course totally fabulous. He's 10 now - they get more difficult as they get older...

So you and your husband both have dark hair and brown eyes?

[DanielParul 50]

My entire family and I have dark brown hair and brown eyes, his blue eyes and red hair. Thats part of the fun, all the guessing and the funny combinations both of us come up with as in whats our baby going to look like. I would never change that. Sometimes its good to leave it upto mother nature!

[Peikko 1,575]

I have a son, he's my number one blond favourite in all the world, and of course I am totally biased. I would never have have guessed I would have a blond kid, blond with blue/grey eyes. Very, very strange, but of course totally fabulous. He's 10 now - they get more difficult as they get older...

So you and your husband both have dark hair and brown eyes?

My ex and I, pretty much.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

I'll take one blue eye, one brown and leopard spotted hair.