A Blood Test Predicting the Baby's Gender Invented

9.04.2012 | By: J. B.

There's a blood test that predicts the baby's gender in the first months of pregnancy!

Future parents will be able to know the baby's gender in advance due to the new blood test. (PhotoXpress)

Join us on Facebook!

How does the blood test work?

The study, conducted by an American doctor, was published in the newspaper of Gynecology and Obstetrics and it is supposed to be completely reliable. The blood test is a new method which predicts the baby's gender in the first three moths of pregnancy with a simple analysis of mother's blood. And how does it work? The placenta contains the blood of both, the mother and the baby, but the concentration of red blood cells of a fetus that end up in mother's blood is very small. The blood test finds specific genes on the Y- chromosome and if it recognizes them, the blood test predicts a boy, and if not, a girl is expected.

Blood test reliability

The method is 100 percent accurate. From 2003 to 2009 approx. 200 pregnant women were tested. With 189 of women the method was successful and they could easily predict the baby's gender. The results were known in two days' time.

Advantages of a blood test

The head of the research team claims that the main advantage of the method is its simplicity. Traditional, older methods which predict the baby's gender require amniocentesis which is accompanied by various complications which can cause trauma for the pregnant woman because of the unpleasant procedures. Another positive thing is that the method enables further tests for possible diseases connected to chromosomes and DNA, so the doctors can discover Down's syndrome and other diseases.

Blood test opens ethical issues

Such researches cause many worries because of the possible abuse. A very important ethical question is if the parents have the right to choose the baby's gender. Blood test also enables women to plan abortion out of the wrong reasons.