It's a baby boy... or girl?

[ abstract from STI, more info here ]

~~
BABY A was a boy, the doctor thought - tests had shown that it had the male XY chromosome.

But when it was born, the father took one look and fainted.The baby looked like a perfectly normal girl.The doctor was equally shocked, as he had been telling the parents how their 'son' was doing.'

What have I done?' he asked himself.

This baby was one of two such cases delivered in the past six years by Associate Professor Arijit Biswas, head of foetal maternal medicine at the National University Hospital (NUH). The hospital re-checked all the tests done to make sure there was no mix-up. There wasn't. But it took weeks for the parents to be reconciled.

'They were angry, shocked and in rejection,' recalled Prof Biswas.

Their baby had a medical condition called genital anomaly.

...

Such babies usually grow up to be extremely attractive and very feminine girls, Prof Biswas said.

...

'Making a diagnosis and remedying the problem are very different,' said Prof Prabhakaran.
'It's very difficult to make a male. It's much easier to make a female if the organs are not adequate.'

To make a boy, doctors carry out reconstructive surgery to give him male organs. But he will lack erectile tissue and hence will not be able to have an erection.

If a boy is just a few weeks old, and cannot be turned into a functional male, the parents and doctor may decide to make him female, by removing the male organs and suppressing testosterone production.

It's easier, as there would be a vagina.
But this child will not be able to bear children - no matter what gender it's assigned.

Doctors will not do it, however, if the child has already been imprinted as a boy. This could occur at as young as two months.

'When the baby has been exposed to testosterone in the first two months of life, the brain is imprinted with the testosterone.

So if this boy's parents want to make him a girl because of inadequate male external genitalia, he might not function, or might not be happy as a girl,' Prof Prabhakaran explained.

'That's why this sort of sex assignment has to be done very early in life, before the baby leaves the hospital. No one knows anything is wrong except the parents.'

Aside from this condition, they are perfectly normal people.
~~

Aren't you glad we don't have such problems? I would feel he should be a boy since he has been exposed to high level of testosterone. He would think and feel like a boy. To think like a boy and be stuck in a girl's body would definitely bring forth future psychological problems. God bless baby A.