Comparative Study on Gender Selection: Persian Medicine and Modern Medicine

Gender selection has emerged as a controversial issue in different countries and in this respect, a wide range of studies and international symposiums have been dedicated to this subject. A comprehensive literature review was performed without restriction on publication date as well as credible Persian Medicine (PM) resources such as "Exir-e-Azam" (The Great Elixir), "Qarabadin-e-Kabir" (Great Pharmacopoeia), and "al-Qānūn fīl-tibb” (The Canon of Medicine) were completely studied. It was found that both nutritional factors such as glucose and electrolytes and non-nutritional factors including female tract, sperm, age, the timing of sexual intercourse, maternal body mass, stress, pH, estrogen, temperature, and testosterone can be used as important indicators in the gender selection. Most recommendations provided by PM for gender selection were found to be in good agreement with those reported by modern medicine.