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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3835 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 18, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Ineffective was not the right word, but it seems that some of the tests give a lot of false positives. If using it to screen embryos you'd delete a lot of healthy ones. If you have a limited number of embryos or a high rate of failure of embryo to pregnancy it might not be wise to use this as screening criteria.

More information is always better. They could decide to still use all the embryos but just try the best ones first.

That's generally not how these tests are used. Usually your number of embryos is higher than the number you'd actually want to implant, so you have to have some criteria. In many cases, this is still done with first some hard cut-off by deformities, down syndrome, etc., and then of the remaining ones it's either plain random or basically by visual inspection. Further genetic testing can help rank the remaining ones instead so that you can implant the one(s) that actually have a better chance at a healthy life. Nobody forces you to discard more embryos than you want, it's usually just extra information that you can still decide to either use or not.

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