Abu Dhabi: More and more couples across the UAE are today undergoing genetic testing in a bid to have successful pregnancies and healthy babies, medical experts say.
Genetic tests can help parents to select the gender of their baby or to ensure that the child is not susceptible to genetic diseases. Increased awareness has led to a surge in the number of residents who opt for genetic analyses.
“Parents understand that it is easier and better to raise a healthy baby than one with an incurable genetic condition, and removing the gene that leads to the abnormality is just one of many treatments possible with the advances in reproductive medicine,” Dr Michael Fakih, founder and medical director at renowned fertility clinic Fakih IVF, told Gulf News.
One in every five couples in the UAE currently requires fertility treatment and with clinics often offering testing facilities in-house, genetic analysis has gained acceptance, experts say.
“Compared to last year, we have seen a 30 per cent rise in the number of couples who seek genetic tests, especially parents who want to ensure that their babies are not born with hereditary disorders,” said Dr Ali Hellani, reproductive geneticist at Fakih IVF. The facility sees about 2,000 fertility treatment cycles a year, and a quarter of these couples apply for genetic tests.
Dr Monika Chawla, reproductive endocrinologist and fertility specialist at Burjeel Hospital, reported a similar increase in the demand for genetic testing.
“About 50 per cent of the 800 fertility cycles we facilitate each year include genetic tests,” she said.
This increase in the demand for testing is, in turn, leading to geneticists encountering more rare hereditary diseases, and greater opportunities for progress in reproductive medicine as many patients travel from abroad to UAE-based fertility centres.
“In just the last week, our facility has come across five rare genetic conditions that we can now analyse and study,” said James Cooper, laboratory director at Dubai-based Bourn Hall Fertility Clinic,
Bourn Hall, which aids 1,000 fertility cycles each year, has seen a ten-fold increase between 2013 and 2014 in the number of couples who get tested genetically. About 200 would-be parents have undergone the tests over the last year alone.
Couples can opt for the tests before conceiving to screen themselves for latent irregular genes that could pass on abnormalities to their children. They can also take the tests during pregnancy. Or they can undergo in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) and have their embryos tested before implantation and pregnancy, known as pre-implantation testing.
In the UAE, a huge proportion of genetic tests are undertaken before implantation to avoid genetic diseases that are common among the population. Such pre-implantation testing can allow geneticists to weed out gene mutations that lead to disorders like thalassemia, sickle-cell anaemia and cystic fibrosis. In addition, conditions arising from chromosomal abnormalities, like Down Syndrome, can also be avoided.
A vast majority of patients also opt for gender selection, or family balancing. Because a number of embryos are harvested for pre-implantation testing, couples can choose the one that matches their preferred gender for the baby. At Fakih IVF, about 70 per cent of couples who undertake genetic tests wish to select the baby’s gender, Dr Hellani said.
Cooper explained that sex selection can be beneficial because some diseases are more common in a particular gender, such as haemophilia and muscular dystrophy.
“Parents who already have a child with a disorder are keen to ensure that future children don’t suffer in the same way. We also see a fair number of people with many children of one gender who desperately want another child of the other sex,” he added.
