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Dying to know the sex of your baby? You can’t be blamed as it’s natural to have the desire to know whom you’ll be giving birth in a matter of just less than nine months.
Even though the sex of your child is not going to change the way you raise them in any way, it can certainly help you choose between blue and pink when painting the baby room instead of simply covering it in the gender neutral yellow! Heck, it can even help you pick out the right clothes if you’re the kind who likes to be ‘always prepared’.
However, this is not for the mothers in India and other countries where fetus sex determination is illegal.
So, if you’re the kind who’d rather know the gender of her little one at the earliest (coz seriously, waiting sucks!), there’s good news for you! Science and technology are fast developing hand in hand and have now jointly come up with a cell-free DNA test, which you can get done to determine the sex of your unborn baby. The discovery of this simple blood test was reported in the Journal of The American Medical Association (so you know it’s authentic).
According to the Association, the mother’s blood can help in the analysis of the foetal DNA so that the sex of the baby can be revealed.
What happens here is that this test searches for traces of the male chromosome in the mommy’s blood. So if the Y chromosome shows up, that means you’re having a boy (yay), and if it doesn’t, that means you’re having a girl (yay again!). The best part about this test is that it can be done super early, just after you complete seven weeks of being pregnant! However, the purpose of this test is not exactly to reveal the gender but to detect the history of genetic disorders that are related to the sex of the baby.
This test is a blessing for all moms as it can help them refrain from invasive tests and treatments for genetic abnormalities that almost always carry a high risk of miscarriage.
There’s also news circulating in the medical world that the cell-free DNA test might not be the only non-invasive way to discover the sex of your baby. Even the heart rate of the baby can help in knowing whether the tiny tot in question is a boy or a girl.
However, a report published in the journal Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy, states that the difference between the heart rates of male and female babies is not significant enough to distinguish between them.
In the end, the element of mystery when you are pregnant will present a positive way to surprise when you finally give birth to your child. However, if you still want to know, the ultrasound is still there. Otherwise, why not just wait and watch? No matter the sex, you know it will be worth it.
