Decision Sharing in Sex Development Disorder Surgery

[Butterfly]

Decision Sharing in Sex Development Disorder Surgery
TS-SI
24 July, 2010


http://ts-si.org/healthcare/26201-decision-sharing-in-sex-development-disorder-surgery


A shared decision-making process would assist doctors and parents who are facing the extraordinarily complex, challenging, and very controversial choices presented when infants are born with genetic or anatomical anomalies in sexual development, particularly when they are under consideration for elective corrective surgery, suggests the authors of a new research paper.

The paper does not address instances in which infants are born with conditions that pose an imminent threat to their health — such as when children are born without a urinary opening.

Instead, the paper, which appears in the Journal of Pediatric Endocrinology and Metabolism (JPEM), is intended to propose guidelines for use when surgery is being considered to make a child's appearance more typical of their sex in order to facilitate their gender-identity development.