By Dr. Shweta Agarwal, MBBS, DGO Medically reviewed by Dr. Shweta Agarwal, MBBS, DGO Last updated: July 2026
Information on this page is educational and does not replace a medical consultation. It is a general explanation of Indian law, not legal advice; for advice on a specific situation, consult a qualified lawyer.
Aansh Hospital & IVF Center is a government-registered Level-2 ART clinic (Reg. No. MH/AC/2024/15441/L2/Chandrapur/132) in Chandrapur, Vidarbha. Our ART registration covers IVF, ICSI and embryo transfer. It does not — and by law cannot — cover sex selection.
This page exists because of a specific problem. If you search "can we select gender in test tube baby" from India today, several of the pages that come back are written by clinics in the United States, Turkey and Europe, where the rules are different. They say yes. That answer does not apply to you.
A note on wording: most people search for "gender selection", so that phrase appears on this page. The laws and the biology are actually about sex — the chromosomes an embryo carries. We use "sex" in the legal and clinical answers below, and "gender" only where it matches the way the question is asked.
Can we select gender in test tube baby?
Not in India. Not in any registered clinic, not for any fee, not under any description.
Two laws apply, and they stack:
The Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994 — "PCPNDT" — Section 3A states that no person, "including a specialist or a team of specialists in the field of infertility," shall conduct or aid sex selection on a woman, a man, or on "any tissue, embryo, conceptus, fluid or gametes" derived from them. Section 3A and the pre-conception provisions were not in the original 1994 Act — they were inserted by the 2002 amendment (brought into force in 2003), which is when the law was widened from prenatal testing to cover selection before conception, and when infertility specialists were named expressly.
The Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act, 2021 — Section 26(1) states that an ART clinic "shall not offer to provide a couple or woman with a child of a pre-determined sex." Section 26(2) additionally prohibits any act, at any stage, to determine the sex of the child — including separating sperm "to separate, or yield fractions enriched in sperm of X or Y variations." That closes the sperm-sorting route. Section 45 confirms that the ART Act operates in addition to, not instead of, PCPNDT.
So both the embryo route (genetic testing) and the sperm route (sorting) are closed, and both statutes apply at once.
IVF treatment — can you choose gender in India? (What the law actually provides)
| Who | Provision | Consequence |
|---|---|---|
| A medical geneticist, gynaecologist, registered medical practitioner, the owner of a genetic counselling centre / laboratory / clinic, or a person employed there who renders professional or technical services | PCPNDT s.23(1) | Imprisonment up to 3 years + fine up to ₹10,000; on subsequent conviction up to 5 years + up to ₹50,000 |
| The practitioner's medical registration | PCPNDT s.23(2) | The Appropriate Authority reports the practitioner to the State Medical Council; registration may be suspended once charges are framed by the court and until the case is disposed of; on conviction, removal from the register for 5 years (first offence), permanently thereafter |
| A person who seeks the aid of a clinic, laboratory or practitioner for sex selection | PCPNDT s.23(3), read with s.4(5) (no person, including a relative or husband, shall seek or encourage a sex-selection technique) | Imprisonment up to 3 years + fine up to ₹50,000 (first offence); up to 5 years + up to ₹1 lakh (subsequent) |
| An ART clinic that contravenes s.26 (sex selection) | ART Act 2021 s.34, applying s.33(2) | Fine of not less than ₹5 lakh, up to ₹10 lakh for a first contravention; for a subsequent contravention, imprisonment of not less than 3 years up to 8 years and fine of ₹10–20 lakh |
| A clinic, bank or agent that advertises sex-selective ART, including online | ART Act 2021 s.32 | Imprisonment of not less than 5 years, up to 10 years, or fine of not less than ₹10 lakh, up to ₹25 lakh, or both |
Two things are worth separating carefully.
Asking what the law says is not an offence. Couples ask us this question all the time, often because a relative has raised it, and we answer it without judgement. That is what this page is.
Seeking or encouraging the actual procedure is what the statute prohibits. Section 4(5) of PCPNDT covers seeking or encouraging a sex-selection technique; s.23(3) attaches a penalty to seeking a provider's aid for it.
There is also a protection built into the Act, and it is deliberate. Section 23(4) provides that the penalty in s.23(3) does not apply to a woman who was compelled to undergo the diagnostic technique or the selection. Section 24 goes further in the specific context of prenatal testing: where a pregnant woman has undergone a prenatal diagnostic technique for a purpose outside those permitted by s.4(2), the court presumes — unless the contrary is proved — that she was compelled by her husband or a relative, who is then liable for abetment. The law anticipated family pressure and directed the liability towards the source of that pressure.
Why does this law exist at all?
Because India counted the children.
Prenatal diagnostic technology was introduced to detect genetic disease. It was then widely used to identify and eliminate female foetuses, on a scale visible in the national child sex ratio. PCPNDT was enacted in 1994 and strengthened in 2002 to stop that. Its purpose is not to inconvenience couples who have waited years for a child; it is to ensure that the technology that helps you conceive cannot be turned back into a filter against daughters.
Section 17(4)(f) makes it a statutory function of the Appropriate Authority "to create public awareness against the practice of sex selection." This page is written in that spirit. We are a fertility clinic saying plainly: we would decline these requests even if the law did not require it.
Can we predict baby gender in IVF? What an embryo report can and cannot tell you
Preimplantation genetic testing is real, and we offer it — see PGT genetic testing. It has three distinct forms: PGT-A assesses chromosome copy number, PGT-M tests for one specified inherited single-gene condition, and PGT-SR looks for structural chromosomal rearrangements. They are different assays; not every one of them necessarily generates sex-chromosome information, and where such information exists in raw laboratory data it is not part of what is reported to you for embryo selection.
The governing provision at the embryo stage is ART Act 2021 s.26(3): no one may provide, prescribe or administer anything that would ensure or increase the probability that an embryo is of a particular sex, or that would identify the sex of an in-vitro embryo — except to diagnose, prevent or treat a sex-linked disorder or disease. That exception is narrow, medical, and requires a genuine indication: families carrying conditions such as haemophilia or Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which predominantly affect males although females can sometimes be affected, are in a genuinely different category from families who would prefer a son. Genetic counselling and written informed consent from both partners precede any such testing.
A separate provision, PCPNDT s.5(2), applies later — during pregnancy. It prohibits communicating the sex of the foetus to the pregnant woman, her relatives or anyone else, "by words, signs or in any other manner." That is why no scan at any registered centre in India will tell you the sex of your baby, hint at it, or write it down.
The practical result across both stages: your report will not carry the sex, and no one at Aansh will tell you — not before transfer, not after, not informally, and not during pregnancy.
Why are IVF babies usually boys?
IVF does not reliably produce a boy. Overall, the proportion of boys born after assisted reproduction is close to the ordinary population ratio, although small shifts have been reported for particular fertilisation methods and embryo-transfer stages.
The clearest evidence comes from the UK. An analysis of 1,376,454 treatment cycles recorded in the HFEA registry between 1991 and 2016 found an overall secondary sex ratio after IVF and ICSI of 104.0 boys per 100 girls — compared with 105.3 boys per 100 girls for England and Wales as a whole over the same period. In other words, the IVF figure was, if anything, very slightly lower than the background rate. For context, the World Health Organization gives the natural range as 103 to 110 boys per 100 girls (Supramaniam et al., Human Reproduction Open, 2019). Differences did appear within the data — between conventional IVF and ICSI, and between transfer stages — which is what people are usually half-remembering when they repeat the boys claim.
A separate systematic review and network meta-analysis found a modestly increased probability of a male baby after blastocyst-stage transfer compared with cleavage-stage transfer (risk ratio 1.07; 95% CI 1.06–1.09, from 18 studies and 227,530 births) — while grading the certainty of that evidence as very low (2022).
Possible explanations that have been proposed — none of them settled — include male embryos reaching the blastocyst stage marginally sooner than female embryos, so that grading criteria which reward developmental speed may indirectly and unknowingly favour them slightly more often.
Three things follow, and all three matter:
- "A small, method-dependent shift" is not "usually boys." Both sexes are born in large numbers after IVF. A statistical difference measured across a million cycles tells you nothing useful about your one transfer.
- It is a by-product, not a service. Any such effect arises from grading criteria applied without reference to sex, which is precisely why it cannot be aimed or requested. Sex must not be used for non-medical embryo selection, and must not be disclosed unlawfully.
- The reported effects vary by technique. Findings differ between conventional IVF and ICSI, and between day-3 and day-5 transfer, which is itself a sign that this is a methodological artefact rather than something IVF "does".
If a WhatsApp forward or a video told you "IVF se ladka hi hota hai" — that is a small statistical finding, stripped of its scale and its caveats.
"IVF treatment for baby boy in India" and "test tube baby process for baby boy"
These are commonly searched phrasings in India. There is no legal process behind them. What exists instead is a market of agents and touts, and it commonly works in a few ways:
The overseas package. You are quoted a figure for treatment in a country where selection is permitted. We do not counsel on, arrange or refer for these packages. Anything done in India to arrange or aid sex selection falls within PCPNDT s.3A, which covers aiding its conduct; whether and how Indian law reaches a procedure performed entirely abroad is a question for a qualified lawyer, not for a fertility clinic, and we do not offer a view on it.
The false promise. Someone takes money to "arrange" a boy and delivers only the odds that existed anyway, taking credit when they fall the right way.
The quiet hint. Someone offers to "let you know" — informally, off the record. At the embryo stage that runs into ART Act s.26(3); during pregnancy it runs into PCPNDT s.5(2), which expressly covers signs as well as words.
If a clinic, agent, scan centre or "consultant" raises your baby's sex at all, treat it as information about that facility's standards generally. A place willing to set aside this law is telling you something about how it handles consent, records and your embryos. Such conduct can be reported to the District Appropriate Authority.
Can I get twins with IUI?
Twins are possible with IUI. The honest framing is that a twin pregnancy is a risk to be minimised, not a bonus to be requested — twins may of course be a very welcome outcome, but treatment is designed to reduce avoidable multiple-pregnancy risk.
In an unstimulated IUI cycle, where a single egg is released naturally, the chance of twins is close to the background chance in natural conception.
In a stimulated IUI cycle, the medication is the variable. Ovarian stimulation is the main driver of multiple pregnancy in IUI, and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine's committee opinion on multiple gestation associated with infertility therapy notes that injectable gonadotropins carry a higher multiple-pregnancy risk than oral agents such as letrozole or clomiphene citrate. This is why follicular monitoring scans are done. If more mature follicles develop than is safe for that patient — a judgement that depends on age, follicle size and number, and hormone levels — the options a clinician may discuss include cancelling the cycle, withholding the trigger, or converting to a different plan. Proceeding regardless may create an unacceptable risk of twins or a higher-order multiple pregnancy.
In IVF, transferring more than one embryo is the major preventable source of twins, though a single transferred embryo can also split. The full trade-off is set out in Single vs Double Embryo Transfer; elective single embryo transfer is the standard of care for good-prognosis patients for exactly this reason.
Why aiming for twins is not advised: twin pregnancies carry higher rates of preterm birth, low birth weight and neonatal intensive care admission for the babies, and higher rates of gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, anaemia and caesarean delivery for the mother (ACOG, multiple pregnancy guidance). "Ek hi baar mein do" is an understandable wish, and a risky clinical target. See high-risk pregnancy care for what a twin pregnancy involves.
How we handle these questions at Aansh
Couples ask. Sometimes the question comes from the couple, sometimes from a relative in the waiting room, and often there is real distress behind it. Questions are welcome and are answered without judgement. What we cannot do is perform, arrange or disclose sex selection.
In practice:
- Sex is never determined for selection purposes and never communicated — at embryo stage or during pregnancy.
- Ultrasound in pregnancy is used for dating, anatomy, growth and wellbeing only, under PCPNDT record-keeping.
- PGT is offered only for the medical indications above, with genetic counselling and written informed consent from both partners as required by the ART Act 2021.
- Any request for sex selection is declined and documented, without hostility.
- If family pressure is the real difficulty, you are welcome to say so — privately, without your relatives present, if you prefer. If you would like Dr. Shweta Agarwal to explain the law and the biology to your family directly, in Marathi or Hindi, that can be arranged with your consent. It is entirely your choice.
For cost planning on legitimate treatment: IVF cost & EMI options. To discuss your situation with no obligation: free second opinion, or WhatsApp +91 80056 85160.
References
- PCPNDT Act, 1994 (as amended) — India Code
- Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act, 2021 — India Code
- Supramaniam PR, et al. Secondary sex ratio in assisted reproduction: an analysis of 1,376,454 treatment cycles performed in the UK. Human Reproduction Open, 2019;2019(4):hoz020. PubMed 31598568
- Congenital anomaly and perinatal outcome following blastocyst- vs cleavage-stage embryo transfer: systematic review and network meta-analysis, 2022 (secondary outcome: probability of a male neonate; all outcomes graded very-low certainty). PubMed 35751886
- ASRM Practice Committee — Multiple gestation associated with infertility therapy: a committee opinion (2022)
- ACOG — Multiple pregnancy (patient guidance)