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ANYONE SEE THAT SEX TEST AT 6W PG ARTICLE?

62 replies

lissielou · 04/05/2007 21:24

t'was in the sun but theres an over the counter test you can get called pink or blue (or similar) and from a prick of mums blood you can tell what sex the 6w foetus is.

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whomovedmychocolate · 04/05/2007 21:41

But OTOH if you were unsure if you wanted to keep the baby would you shell out the money for the test.

Oh and it's eight weeks pregnant - six weeks from the date of conception, not SIX WEEKS as we would measure it.

lissielou · 04/05/2007 21:41

whomovedmychocolate, its so cynical!

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lulumama · 04/05/2007 21:42

well, if you were going to keep the baby or not, based on gender, then i guess you would

makes me shudder

whomovedmychocolate · 04/05/2007 21:42

Actually I was desperate to know what we were having just so I could mentally adjust - I really wanted (and got) a girl and knew I'd have to reconcile a boy (I know, sounds horrid but pregnancy is a hormonal swamp and I wasn't thinking straight).

But no way would I buy a diagnostic test off the internet.

TheArmadillo · 04/05/2007 21:43

I think there is a point what Lissielou said. SUrely finding out the sex before 3months/12 weeks is not a good idea considering how many pregnancies fail in that period? It could only make things more upsetting (if that is possible).

NOt a good idea imo unless there is a necessary medical reason.

whomovedmychocolate · 04/05/2007 21:43

I guess the sort of people who WOULD pay for this service would also pay for a private abortion so the situation hasn't changed, just the marketing had become more direct.

It still stinks though.

Have sent them an email questioning their sanity.

LynetteScavo · 04/05/2007 21:44

I'm really uncomfortable about the idea of this test, but I don't know if I could resist taking it. It all sounds so easy, and I'm soooo impatiant.

lulumama · 04/05/2007 21:45

just wonder what area of pregnancy will be exploited next?

i have nothing against finding out the gender, as i said, i found out with both of mine, but this test is just uneccesary, unless you need to find out to determine whether you are going to continue the pregnancy

lissielou · 04/05/2007 21:45

think i will too!

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whomovedmychocolate · 04/05/2007 21:47

Oh next it'll be 'testing your genetic predisposition to pregnancy diabetes' because that's easy to do. Or 'your genetic disposition to having twins so you can take out twin insurance (yes it exists).'

lissielou · 04/05/2007 21:49

or maybe you can find out what clour hair/eyes your child will have, after all, its all genetics!

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whomovedmychocolate · 04/05/2007 22:01

As of today you can:

(1) Test to see what percentage of your eggs are still fertile
(2) Test your partners sperm
(3) Buy viagra to coax your partner into life
(4) Buy early pregnancy tests
(5) Find out the sex of your baby

But then they don't have a test for:

(1) Whether you will be a good parent
(2) If you will develop pre-eclampsia

lissielou · 05/05/2007 08:13

working on it tho, when i was pg with ds i developed pre-eclampsia there were posters asking for volunteers to assess your risk

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whomovedmychocolate · 05/05/2007 11:05

I know, they nicked my DDs placenta for this very reason (I had PE too). Actually everyone in my village who has had a baby in the past year had had a girl AND had PE!

lissielou · 07/05/2007 08:43

thats some coincidence!

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LazyLine · 07/05/2007 09:06

Personally I don't see the need for this test. However, if it is possible to find out the gender at such an early point, then it really is inevitable that such a thing will come about.

Maybe this will mean more abortions but what annoys me is that a lot of the "experts" discussing this on the television and radio seem to have assumed that an abortion is the easy way out, or is an easy thing to do. As if, all women, when faced with a gender that they weren't dreaming of, will without second thought book themselves in and never look back.

Personally, as someone who has had a termination, I can say that if I knew the gender at the time, it's likely that I couldn't have gone through with it.

Surely it personalises it more? I do see that this will make no difference for some people though.

FWIW, is there any point of a gender abortion being illegal? Does that stop anyone?

lissielou · 07/05/2007 09:40

actually LL, thats a great point. didnt think of it like that. however the fear is that women will have gender abortions for cultural/religious reasons.

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LazyLine · 07/05/2007 10:17

I see that lissie, and I agree that it will probably be the case. However, it is still possible to get an abortion at the normal gender scan dates. Sure, some places won't do it, and an abortion at nearly 20 weeks is a lot more unpleasant than one at 8 weeks, but still.

It is currently possible for people to abort once they have found out the gender. Just because health authorities refuse to gender test in certain areas makes no difference. If you can afford £200 to get the test, you can afford the £75 to private scan.

mamazon · 07/05/2007 10:22

i can see no reason why anyone would want to pay £200 to find out what the sex of their child is unless it was for rather unpleasant reasons.

if you are happy to be pregnant and curiosity wins then you would ask the nurse at your scan, you wouldn't NEED to know so much you would pay for a very expensive test. whats the difference...It's a baby.

i think it should have been marketed at testing at 10 weeks at the very earliest though. prior to that you are able to "just pop a pill" to cause a miscarriage. to some this may seem a darn sight easier than having a full surgical termination and therefore more atrractive.

on ythe other hand a young girl who is thinking of a termination may think diferently once she knows she is not carryin a feotus, she is carrying a little boy or girl.

paulaplumpbottom · 07/05/2007 11:01

Surely people wouldn't be so callous

mamazon · 07/05/2007 11:04

when i was PG with my Ds the hospital had a policy of not giving the sex details of the babies becasue there was a high number of termination requests the week following a scan.

it was an area highly populated by a cultural group widely known for their preferential treatment to boys and where a womans first born had to be a boy.

sadly it is actually very common.

paulaplumpbottom · 07/05/2007 11:12

Thats awful

jdd0709 · 07/05/2007 11:19

Right or wrong I think this is scientifically very questionable. My understanding is that once you have had a boy a very small trace of the Y chromosome remains present in the mothers bloodstream for a long time \ forever? so surely once you have had one boy or male pregnancy whatever the outcome you could then get a false positive for a boy on using the test in subsequent pregnancies? I wouldn^t touch this witha bargepole. Alos, like they say, it is apparently quite common to start off with twins eg a boy and a girl but for one to be lost very early on, possibly explaining early bleeds. This too would give a false positive as youd pick up the Y chromosome from the lost twin and think the remaining girl was a boy.

I also think 8 weeks is way too early to be thinking about the sex due to the mc risk, presumably anyone tempted to use this would have a specific preference, imagine finding out you had got what you wanted and then subsequently miscarry, why make it harder to bear.

Anyone can request or pay for a CVS at 12 weeks as I did when you can find out the sex anyway (I am not aware of any hospitals that can withold this when giving the genetic determination), surely this is early enough. i appreciate that a blood test is non invasive but this seems like a money making scheme to me.

I read this report in the SUN and it really made me laugh how crap their research was, they stated that it had previously only been possible to find out the sex at 20 weeks and not before, no idea about amnios or cvs, not to mention the fact that modern scanners can see the sex much earlier, you could clearly see the boy bits at my 12 week scan recently, later confirmed by the cvs.

mamazon · 07/05/2007 11:22

i think teh article meant that on the NHS it is normal for sex to remain undetermined until the 20 week scan.

Tamum · 07/05/2007 11:30

Certainly 20 years ago when I was involved in diagnoses with CVS for genetic disorders the information about sex was routinely withheld from parents because of the number of people who chose to terminate female girls.