Boy or girl?
Expectant parents just dying to know may not have to wait for the 12-week ultrasound.
American researchers have confirmed that a blood test can detect a fetus’s gender at seven weeks, Reuters reports.
The controversial test has an accuracy range from 95 per cent at seven weeks to 99 per cent at 20 weeks, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The test, which analyzes fetal DNA found in the mother’s blood, could reduce the number of amniocenteses performed on unborn babies in families with gender-linked genetic disorders such as hemophilia, said study author Diana Bianchi, of Tufts University School of Medicine.
Although the blood test is not available for clinical use in North America, various European hospitals already rely on the method, called cell-free fetal DNA.
“What they are finding in England is that many women are not going on to have the invasive tests,” Ms. Bianchi told Reuters.
But some doctors question the ethics of revealing a baby’s sex so early in pregnancy.
“If parents are using [the test] to determine gender and then terminate the pregnancy based on that, that could be a problem,” said Mary Rosser, an obstetrician and gynecologist at the Montefiore Medical Center in New York. “Remember, gender is not a disease.”
Sex-detection tests are readily available over the Internet, but several companies do not sell the tests in China or India, The New York Times reports. (China, for its part, has vowed to crack down on sex-selective abortion to balance the gender ratio in a country where families are limited to having one child and girls have become scarce because boys are prized.)
Companies such as Consumer Genetics, which markets a Pink or Blue test, require customers to sign a waiver saying they are not using the test for sex selection. “We don’t want this technology to be used as a method of gender selection,” said Terry Carmichael, the company’s executive vice-president.
Dr. Rosser told Reuters that the seven-week blood test should be restricted for medical purposes. “It should only be used by families that are at risk for sex-linked diseases.”
On the other hand, who hasn’t heard of at least one couple whose ultrasound technician got the baby’s gender wrong?
Do you think the seven-week gender test should be available in Canada?
