Embryo’s Gender Can be Known in Seven Weeks

From a recent study, it was a simple blood test can be used to determine the sex of the baby, in just seven weeks of pregnancy.

In that study, researchers examined 57 studies of fetal DNA from about 6,500 pregnant women. The results are then published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Quoted from the New York Times, Friday, August 12, 2011, from the analysis of fetal DNA testing in the blood of the mother, if the Y chromosome is present, it will have a boy. If not, then the fetus is female.

According to researchers, these findings could help parents who are worried about diseases related to gender. However, this test can also be misused to others.

Researchers said the results of this test could be good news for parents of offspring at risk of rare diseases, gender-related genetic disorders, such as Duchenne muscular abnormalities in boys or Turner syndrome in girls.

Knowing the sex of the fetus from an early age will also help parents determine whether they should undergo genetic testing is expensive. However, this also creates opportunities surrounding the selective abortion of unwanted sex.

In China or India, which is known uni-sexual female fetuses are often aborted because they prefer boys.

Researchers hope that, in the future, an institution which held a blood test such services in advance to ask parents to sign a waiver stating that they will not use it for the purpose of abortion.