If expecting parents can’t wait to find out the sex of their unborn child – there’s a new, simple blood test that could let them know if they’re having a boy or girl as early as seven weeks into the pregnancy.
Researchers from the National Institutes of Health analyzed material on the reliability of obtaining cell-free fetal DNA from the blood of pregnant women after seven weeks gestation, and results showed the blood test accurately determined the sex of the baby 95 percent of the time.
These groundbreaking results could offer an alternative to amniocentesis, as well as provide gender specific treatment for the mother to undergo if her fetus has a rare disorder.
“If you want to get out there at an earlier time and buy your pink and blue items that could be of interest to mothers, but in terms of the bigger picture and using this for medical decision making, the consequences of an incorrect result have much more dire, significant consequences,” Dr. Rocio Moran, a geneticist from the Cleveland Clinic who did not take part in the study, said about the findings.
Complete findings of the NIH study can be found in the Journal of the American Medical Association.