Tests may be done to help get a clear diagnosis and find out whether any immediate treatment is needed. Your care team may advise you to delay registering your child's birth for a few days until the tests are complete, you have discussed the results with your child's care team and the sex of your baby is established or decided. Many forms of DSD do not require any medical care other than understanding the baby's development and knowing what to expect as they grow older.
A specialist nurse in your care team can help you learn about DSD and a psychologist will help you address any concerns you have.
Sometimes a DSD may be diagnosed if an older child does not go through puberty properly. For example, your child may not start showing the changes linked with puberty, or they may start puberty but not have periods. Speak to a GP if you have any concerns about your child's development at puberty. They can refer your child to a specialist.
This will usually be a consultant paediatric endocrinologist, who specialises in hormones, or an adolescent gynaecologist. A team of specialist healthcare professionals will work with you to understand your child's condition and offer you and your child support and advice. A psychologist in the team can talk with you or your child about sexuality, relationships and body image among other subjects. Some people with DSD may need hormone therapy and psychological support.
Some may want to think about altering their existing genitals, for example by using vaginal stretch techniques. Speak to a GP, as they'll be able to refer you to a team of specialist healthcare professionals. They can answer your questions, help you stay healthy and put you in touch with others with DSD if that's something you're interested in.
Most people with a DSD stay with the gender linked to their sex at birth, which is the sex on their birth certificate. But if your legal sex does not represent who you are or how you identify, you may want to discuss your options with your care team.
If you have a DSD and want to explore parenthood, you can also discuss this with your specialist care team. If you have a DSD or you're the parent of a child with a DSD, you may find it useful to contact a group involving others with the same or similar experiences.
These groups can often offer more information and advice about living with a DSD, and may be able to put you in contact with others who've been in a similar situation to you.
Page last reviewed: 15 August Next review due: 15 August Differences in sex development. Why does DSD happen? Some examples are: Usual female pattern genes with genitals that look different to girls' genitals Some people have XX usual female chromosomes with ovaries and a womb, but their genitals may not look the same as many females. For example, they may have a more developed clitoris and their vagina may be closed.
Genes usually seen in males with genitals that look the same as most girls' and some internal male structures Some people have XY male chromosomes, but their external genitals may develop in the usual way for girls or boys. In the s she made her way to this remote part of the Dominican Republic, drawn by extraordinary reports of girls turning into boys.
When she got there she found the rumours were true. She did lots of studies on the Guevedoces including what must have been rather painful biopsies of their testicles before finally unravelling the mystery of what was going on. When you are conceived you normally have a pair of X chromosomes if you are to become a girl and a set of XY chromosomes if you are destined to be male.
For the first weeks of life in womb you are neither, though in both sexes nipples start to grow. Then, around eight weeks after conception, the sex hormones kick in. If you're genetically male the Y chromosome instructs your gonads to become testicles and sends testosterone to a structure called the tubercle, where it is converted into a more potent hormone called dihydro-testosterone This in turn transforms the tubercle into a penis.
If you're female and you don't make dihydro-testosterone then your tubercle becomes a clitoris. When Imperato-McGinley investigated the Guevedoces she discovered the reason they don't have male genitalia when they are born is because they are deficient in an enzyme called 5-alpha-reductase, which normally converts testosterone into dihydro-testosterone.
This deficiency seems to be a genetic condition, quite common in this part of the Dominican Republic, but vanishingly rare elsewhere.
So the boys, despite having an XY chromosome, appear female when they are born. At puberty, like other boys, they get a second surge of testosterone. This time the body does respond and they sprout muscles, testes and a penis. Imperato-McGinley's thorough medical investigations showed that in most cases their new, male equipment seems to work fine and that most Guevedoces live out their lives as men, though some go through an operation and remain female.
Another thing that Imperato-McGinley discovered, which would have profound implications for many men around the world, was that the Guevedoces tend to have small prostates. Some scientists think whether you're likely to have a girl or boy is inherited through the father , although nobody has identified a gene. Others have suggested that it comes down to heritable traits that could confer an evolutionary advantage on one sex, but not the other, when it's time for offspring to reproduce.
For example, studies have speculated that t all parents have more boys, or beautiful parents have more girls , although the theory has been criticized.
Another hypothesis is that parents' hormones at the moment of conception have an influence. Read More. However, a new study that examines the entire population of Sweden since says that the sex of offspring is purely down to chance. Brendan Zietsch, a fellow at the University of Queensland's School of Psychology and the lead author of the study, which published Tuesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Michigan couple welcomes their 13th son. Using information from Swedish birth registries, the researchers compared whether siblings tended to have offspring of the same sex.
0コメント