Question: "I've heard there are all sorts of ways to predict what your baby's gender will be. What are they? Are they accurate?"
When it comes to betting pools, few are as fascinating as the ones focused on a mom-to-be. Family and friends can lay odds on the baby's delivery date, weight, and (most fun of all!) gender. And the winner is…? These days, there are plenty of high-tech (and pretty accurate) ways to predict baby gender (so there’s often no need to play the odds), but it's still loads of fun to use the various low-tech (and inaccurate) methods (aka old wives’ tales) to try to suss out the baby's sex before he or she is born. Here is a rundown of all the various high- and low-tech ways to predict baby gender (along with the likelihood of each one).
PREDICTING BABY GENDER THE HIGH-TECH WAY
NIPT. As early as nine weeks into your pregnancy, you can learn the sex of your baby through a simple blood test, noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT). Studies show it's more than 99 percent accurate at predicting a baby's sex, plus it offers a rundown of a baby's risk of chromosomal abnormalities including trisomy 21 (Down syndrome), trisomy 18 (Edwards syndrome) and trisomy 13 (Patau syndrome). It's suggested for moms whose age or genetic history indicates there might be a risk of birth defects, and it's not invasive — meaning there's no risk for you our your baby. So if you're interested in having NIPT to find out your baby's risk of chromosomal abnormalities in addition to finding out his or her gender, it's worth talking to your doctor.
CVS and amnio. Both chorionic villus sampling (CVS) andamniocentesis are invasive diagnostic tests that analyze a baby’s genetic makeup and screen for chromosomal abnormalities (as early as week 10 for CVS or week 15 for amnio). Again, these tests are recommended for moms who are higher-risk, especially since they're invasive (which slightly elevates your risk of miscarriage). In other words, they’re not designed for parents who are just curious about their baby’s gender. But if your practitioner recommends you have one or the other (and you’re itching to find out the sex of your baby-to-be), the results can tell you the baby's gender with 100 percent accuracy.
Ultrasound. A routine (meaning everyone has at least one) noninvasive test usually performed between weeks 18 and 22 of pregnancy (though it can be done at other times too), ultrasound isn’t quite as accurate as CVS or amnio. But if in the course of checking the baby’s anatomy (and making sure all the parts are growing the way they should) the technician is able to get a good view between the baby’s legs. Which means you can choose to be told (be certain to decide ahead of time whether you want to be told) if your little one is a boy or a girl. The caveat with ultrasounds: Technicians are human, so they sometimes make mistakes, especially if the relevant body parts aren’t on their best display!
There have been several studies linking pregnancy symptoms and other factors to hints at predicting baby's sex. While the odds of guessing right are still very low, they can be fun (and ever-so-slightly more scientific) methods.
BABY-GENDER PREDICTION KITS
If you know you aren’t going to have NIPT, CVS or amnio and you simply can’t wait until your second-trimester ultrasound to get a glimpse of the goods (or lack thereof!), gender prediction kits are another "high-tech" way to predict your baby's sex (though they aren't particularly accurate, and they often raise more questions than answers. If you look online, you’ll find home baby-gender prediction kits that claim to provide results with an accuracy rate of more than 90 percent — even early in the first trimester. Some of those kits require you to pee into a cup (a task that probably won’t faze you now that you’ve become a pro at it), while others require a blood sample. Both types of kits predict baby gender based on the amount of testosterone in your urine or the presence (or absence) of male-specific DNA in your blood.
So which kind is more accurate? Neither one, really. While both types of kits promise to be right more than 90 percent of the time, the manufacturers usually add a caveat in fine print (or on their Web sites) advising parents not to paint the nursery pink or blue until the mom-to-be confirms the results with her doctor. (In fact, some moms in New York are suing a maker of one of these blood-sample-based baby sex tests because the company promised infallibility and the results were incorrect.) Yet another drawback to these tests is the cost — the blood-sample tests can set you back a few hundred dollars, while the urine-based tests run about $40 a kit.
PREDICTING BABY GENDER THE LOW-TECH WAY
What if tests aren’t your thing? Well, you certainly can have fun experimenting with all the old wives’ tales that focus on baby-gender prediction. But while these techniques are fun to laugh (and chew) over at family gatherings, each of them has about a 50/50 chance of being correct — odds that are great for that betting pool...but not so great if you're using that particular method to pick out the nursery’s color scheme. So what are the most common?
- Where you're carrying. If you’re carrying in your hips, you're having a girl. If you're carrying in your belly, you're having a boy.
- Position of the linea nigra. If your linea nigra (the line of pigmentation on your belly) runs only up to the belly button, you’re having a girl. If it runs past the belly button and up toward the ribs, it’s a boy.
- Fetal heart rate. If the baby’s fetal heart rate is below 140 beats per minute, you’re having a boy. If the heart rate is more than 140 beats per minute, you’re having a girl. (It's worth noting that studies have been done on the subject, and they show no correlation between heart rate and gender.)
- Taking a swing at it. Take a ring (or a needle) and attach it to a thread. Lie down, and have someone hold the dangling ring over your belly. If the ring swings in a circular motion, you’re having a girl. If it moves in back and forth like a pendulum, you’re having a boy.
- Chinese birth calendar. Check out the Chinese birth calendar, which predicts the baby’s gender based on your age and the month your baby was conceived.
- Your appetite. If you're bellying up to the refrigerator with the regularity of a teenage boy, you may be expecting one (or, at least, a male fetus on his way to becoming a teenage boy). In this case, research actually does show that moms-to-be carrying boys tend to eat more than moms expecting girls — which could explain why boys tend to be heavier at birth than girls. But would you be as hungry (or even more hungry) if you were expecting a girl? Hard to say. Still, food (and more food) for thought.
So go ahead and have fun with the guessing game (or the betting pool). Whether you end up going with a high-tech method to predict your baby’s gender, you choose to put the old wives’ tales to the test, or you just want to find out the old-fashioned way in the delivery room, chances are you’ll fall in love with that baby in your arms no matter what the gender.
Here's to having a healthy (and adorable) boy or girl, (WHAT TO PREDICT)
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