Australia's peak medical council has knocked back a push to allow parents to choose the gender of their baby in new national guidelines.

But the National Health and Medical Research Council left the door open for future changes, suggesting sex selection may be ethical.

On Thursday, the NHMRC banned clinics from offering gender selection for non-medical purposes in its long-anticipated guidelines for assisted reproductive technologies (ART).

The council's working committee – the Australian Health Ethics Committee (AHEC) – had recommended the council consider condoning sex selection in certain circumstances.