Baby Gender Testing: Pink or Blue?

Are you a mom to-be? Have you and your partner been guessing whether it will be a girl or a boy? Well luckily there are different methods you can use to help you answer your question. You can wait until the moment of truth at birth, with your 20th week pregnancy scan or as early as 10 weeks pregnancy with a DNA test.

Why find out the sex of your baby?

While for some parents it is akin to opening a Christmas present before Christmas, for others knowing the sex of your baby can make a great revelation at a family get together. It might also make sense if you plan a baby shower while still pregnant. Knowing with certainty whether you will have a baby girl or boy can help you decide on a party theme that is gender specific or even personalized. It can also make the shopping experience for your friends easier and they may feel reassured they are picking the right gift for the right sex.

What about bedroom planning? Why not have the baby’s bedroom ready and decorated beforehand? Wouldn’t you rather spend more time with your baby rather than running about deciding which furniture to buy and how to decorate the room? Anyway, the bottom line is that some people like being pragmatic and well prepared, they feel that knowing before means they can dedicate all their precious time to bonding. Knowing the sex of the baby you are carrying means you can talk to it knowing it’s a him or a her and once it arrives you have already established a special bond with your son or daughter.

Others prefer guessing and waiting till the midwife holds up their baby and eagerly tells them “it’s a boy” or “it’s a girl”. The sudden discovery of the gender of baby you nurtured for 9 months in your womb is a really indescribable feeling.

Surprisingly for an increasing number of parents, discovering the sex of their baby is the norm. At around 18 weeks, an ultrasound (carried out as a routine checkup) can confirm the sex of the baby with a marked degree of accuracy. Don’t be surprised if people wonder why you didn’t opt to find out whether you will have a baby boy or baby girl when the technology was readily available.

What about those parents who want to find out even earlier? Who cannot wait till around their 18th week of pregnancy?

DNA Tests for Baby Gender

Baby gender prediction testing that is DNA-based can be carried as early as 10 weeks of pregnancy and with a higher accuracy than ultrasonography. Baby gender testing with urine offers an accuracy of 99% whilst baby gender testing with a blood sample offers an accuracy of around 95%. Both these tests involve laboratory analysis of the expectant mother’s urine sample to confirm the presence of male DNA (in other words, the DNA testing process is aimed at detecting the presence of the Y chromosome in the samples provided).