How Accurate Is Gender Prediction With Ultrasound?

Posted: 6. April, 2011 0

An ultrasound is performed in the second trimester to determine the size and anatomy of your baby and to confirm the correct due date for the pregnancy, along with giving the parents reassurance that all is well. Again, we have to say that most couples are very concerned with the gender of the baby at the time of this ultrasound. Obviously, the couple wants a healthy baby, but is it a healthy baby boy or girl?

In this age where immediate gratification is the norm, we no longer have to wait until delivery to discover the sex of the baby. There is a small percentage of couples, like us, that did not choose to know the gender of their children until they were born. We will have to go on record stating that Shawn wanted to know and Katie did not, and thus with the 51 percent veto power of the pregnant mother, we did not know the gender until birth.

Wanting to know the gender of our baby became an obsession to the point where I asked my wife daily if I could look at the ultrasound machine in the office, but to no avail. What made things worse for me were the throngs of friends and family asking, and their looks of total disbelief. “You mean you guys don’t know what you are having? What, don’t you know how to do an ultrasound?” In the end, I discovered that, as the father, as well as the obstetrician, it is truly exciting to have and deliver a baby whose gender is unknown.

So what is the success rate of ultrasound in gender prediction? It really depends on the gestational age of the infant when the scan is performed and the skill of the technician performing the ultrasound. In the early second trimester, around fourteen to fifteen weeks, the sex of the fetus can be difficult to visualize because the penis and the clitoris have a similar developmental structure. An ultrasound done around eighteen to twenty j weeks of gestation has a higher predictive value for gender. In fact, studies have shown that sex can be determined 100 percent of the time if the ultrasound is done after twenty weeks in at least one or two exams. In a review of multiple studies, the accuracy was shown to be 97 percent.

Ultrasound reports from outside facilities not associated with our birthing clinic almost never state the gender of the baby. Ultrasound centers commonly discourage their technicians from going on record with the gender of the fetus for fear of retribution if they are wrong. We have yet to hear of a lawsuit against someone for telling the parents that the gender of the baby was different than expected, but things happen. So if ultrasound can be wrong and the Chinese calendar is questionable, what can you do if you want to know the sex of your baby? The answer in most cases: wait and see.

The only other option is amniocentesis, a test in which a needle is placed through the abdominal wall and into the uterus and used to draw a small bit of amniotic fluid, which is sent to a lab. A chromosomal analysis of the fetus is done, which determines the sex of the baby. This test is normally performed for women over age thirty-five or those concerned about a possible chromosomal defect. The risk of the amniotic membranes rupturing during or after the procedure is about one in two hundred. Because such a rupture can cause life-threatening issues for the baby, this test is inappropriate for gender determination. Currently, the test is only offered by obstetricians and maternal-fetal medicine specialists who have a clearly documented medical reason for performing it.

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• Chinese Birth Calendar – Predict Your Babies Gender