Gender Prediction Testing: Blood or Urine

Boy or girl gender prediction testing is an accurate way of determining the sex of your unborn child. Will you have a baby girl or a baby boy? It is the urge of most parents to want to find out and with today’s tests, knowing the sex of the baby can happen far earlier than with an ultrasound. The two tests used are:

• Gender prediction test with a sample of maternal urine
• Gender prediction test with a sample of maternal peripheral blood

Why do parents want to know the sex of their baby ?

The idea of a surprise at birth and the anticipation of a 9-month wait is great to some. They just want to wait till the birth to find out the gender of their child. Others just cannot live with the excitement and suspense of not knowing. Others still are taken in by the practicality required in today’s world. They want to know the sex of the baby to be able to choose bedroom colour schemes and issue gift lists, buy clothes and choose names. Choosing names is in fact a major issue when babies are born- parents often find themselves panicked to fill in the necessary documents and choose names hurriedly.

How accurate are ultrasounds ?

Ultrasounds can be used to predict the sex of the baby. However, unlike baby gender prediction tests they must be carried out later in the pregnancy. The accuracy of it depends on:

• the gestational age of baby
• the level of training of the person doing the ultrasound
• the equipment (how old, new, technology)
• mother’s weight
• baby’s position

How is a Gender Prediction Test carried out ?

As mentioned the test can be carried out with either a sample of maternal urine or of maternal blood.

• To collect a sample of maternal blood, the company provides a kit. In the kit there are finger lancets (similar to long needles with a sharp tip) and a special type of paper. What is required is that the mother pricks the tip of her finger and lets the blood drip onto the paper.
• For a baby sex test with urine, the company sends out a kit containing a urine specimen cup. Once the urine is collected, a special preservative is added to the urine sample to stop it degrading. The urine can then be sent back to the laboratory for analysis.

With both these baby gender tests, the mother must be extremely careful when collecting the sample- the test is extremely sensitive to the presence of male DNA and thus, if a male is present he may contaminate the sample. In this case, the test could actually give false results: it will tell you that you are expecting a baby boy when in fact it is not so. For a gender test with maternal urine, it is recommended that the women refrain from sexual intercourse for 72 hours before collecting the urine sample.

How does a Gender Test work ?

The placental wall which envelopes the baby is a point of exchange for nutrients, vitamins and gases between mother and child. The sac surrounding the baby is filled with amniotic fluid; this fluid is composed mainly of urine but also contains a lot of placental and fetal DNA fragments. These fragments find their way in to the maternal blood stream. About 10% of the DNA fragments in the mother’s blood come from the foetus.

The blood eventually gets to the kidneys where a filtration process takes place and the fetal DNA fragments get filtered out with the urine. Of course, the most obvious advantage of the urine gender prediction test is that is does not require any blood, lancets and pricks. Some people shudder at the thought of needles. Both baby gender prediction tests are however, extremely accurate at determining the sex of the child.

For a non-scientific and fun way of determining the gender of your child we recommed you visit our baby gender predictor site.