Naive question re sex of baby

[Teddybear33]

I'm sure this is something everyone else knows and I'm being dense but if you don't find out the sex of the baby at the anomoly scan and it's not in your notes, do the doctors/midwives know?

Thanks

I'd be interested to know this. I've chosen not to find out but had some late scans so I figure sonographer does know. I'm sure they're not interested at all but I'm also sure they can tell

I think the sonographer might know, as in they see it during a scan.

But if it isn't written down, then I would assume the doctors/midwives do not know. How could they?

At my 20 week scan, the sonographer suggested we look away briefly to avoid finding out the sex (baby boy) so she clearly knew then though we didn't find out til birth. She told us that they don't make any record of the info in their/our notes unless it's clinically relevant to, for example, a hereditary illness.

I told sonographer I didn't want to know - so he didn't even look! He said it has no diagnostic or medical purpose at this stage, so why look? If it's not written down anywhere - how would they know?

No they won't know. The sonographer will obviously but not tell you.

I found that some MW always refer to the baby as one sex. My MW always called babies 'he', she kept referring to ours as he after we'd told her it was a girl. When I said 'oh no it's a girl' she apologised and explained she just refers to one sex when people don't know, it sounds a bit more personal than 'baby' or 'it'.

If you're worried your MW is referring to a sex this might be why

I ask because of a comment our midwife made suggesting it was a boy and wondered if she knew or was making a passing comment

We didn't want to know, but I asked sonographer if she knew and she said yes! Which sort of makes me think it might be a boy, as that would be clearer to see in passing, but some of my friends tell me that girls can be quite clear too..... I don't see any way the midwife could know though as there's nothing written down.

Hx

I think it depends on the position of the baby - sometimes it will be obvious to the sonographer and other times they would have to look specifically for it. They wouldn't write it down in your notes if they happened to notice as it has no medical relevance.

At my 20 week scan the sonographer told me she couldn't tell but she also told me that she couldn't see very much detail at all and recommend a private scan for reassurance of other things. I went for a private scan at 22 weeks and the sonographer told me straight away assuming I wanted to know! Good job I did!

We were asked if we wanted to know and told the check would be made at the end of the scan after all the other checks were done if we did. So I assume if we didn't want to know she wouldn't have looked at all.

We are odd and I did find out whilst dp left the room as he didn't want to. So the sex is my little secret. The sonographger said she'd never heard back that she's got the sex wrong but quipped that in my case as only I had the verdict no-one else would know if she had! So I really don't think that they share the information at all. Clearly it can't be on your notes as you'd just read it.

It is very common to just say 'he' all the time. It's easier and as someone else said a bit more personal than 'it'.

Its not part of the anomoly scan, we wanted to find out and the sonographer did try to look for us, going down that end but we had to go private in the end. They may come across something in their search for the feet as the check for club foot however. They don't write it down anywhere, if you've seen one born then the midwifes always ask "do you know what your having?"

They can take a good guess at check ups when they look at the heartrate, mine is spot on 120-130 for a boy, my friend didn't want to know until birth but asked her midwife what she thought and the midwife was correct based only on heartrate.

Midwives and sonographers often will refer to the baby as 'he' as the mother is 'she', to avoid using 'it'. They don't write it down if they do notice and don't look unless asked to, so, even if the sonographer noticed, no one else will know.

When I had my 20 week scan with DS3 (17 years ago!) I asked the sonographer this question. Her reply was that they do keep a note of it & then check that they were right after the baby is born. She said that hospitals that will tell you the sex of the baby need to keep records to check how accurate their gender predictions are. If their accuracy is lower than about 97 per cent right (I can't remember the exact figure, it was a long time ago) they would have to stop telling parents the sex.

We found out the sex of our DS but it wasn't in my notes as mw kept asking what I was having.

Thanks everyone. We chose not to find out but had to have a middle of the night check. At that check the midwife said words along the lines of 'you can tell it's a boy' so I did wonder if she'd let the cat out of the bag. I suspect after reading this thread she's none the wiser than me and it was just a passing comment/joke. Either way we'll be happy so long as the little one comes out healthy :-)

They dont know but my MW said she has a 95 percent success rate at sexing the heartbeat so they may have an inclin.

I can get access to all my scans on the system (as I work for the trust and requested permission). I know the baby is a girl as the sonographer told me. However he didn't document it anywhere and it's not recorded on any of the scans on the system. So it appears, in my trust, this isn't done. I guess it's kind of irrelevant to the medical professionals looking after you unless it needs to be discovered for genetic/health reasons... Say like a genetic condition that only passes down through one gender.

Drama Alpaca, I hadn't thought of that. I expect they keep the information separate and just for audit purposes.

We had amnio, in which case the sex is in your hospital records as some of the things they test for only present in one sex. However it wasn't in my notes and my MW didn't know.

IME mw's make boy/girl and also early/late comments all the time, and are right about 50% of the time.

Haha penguins!

My midwife said she thought I'd come early because I was quite active at the end of pregnancy. So I was VERY grumpy with her at my 40 week appt :)

Mine said she thought I'd go by 39 weeks as the head was so low. I told her she was wrong and I expected to go around 8 days over (by my dates). I did indeed go 8 days over (13 by their dates). I have three DC, all of whom have been 8-9 days over.

It was a bet I wouldn't have minded losing, but a part of me was pleased to be right!

I also came exactly on my own due date (scan moved me forward 5 or 6 days)

This time scan moved me back!

I was also engaged from 34 weeks. That is a long time to have someone's head stuck in your pelvis.

My mw made a guess at it DC #1 being a girl because my bump was so small, but she also said because it was small I'd go over and I was induced at 36+4 whilst she was away on holiday.

We said as soon as we walked into the room for our second (and thir d and fourth ) scans that we did not want to know the sex, there was no mention of it in my notes either hand held or hospital notes (I poured over my hand held notes throughout my pregnancy and they made the mistake of leaving my hospital notes in the labour ward with me after my induction so I have a good old snout though them) there were however lots of notes effectively about me being an inpatient pain in the ass who refused to sleep or stay in bed on the pre-labour ward (they kept me trapped in there for three days with no prior warning and little information on what was going on or whether I was even going to be staying at the hospital or moved to another half way across the country, and it hurt to lay on my back courtesy of steroid injections and I was suffering from some serious insomnia at the time, I really was an uncooperative grumpy cow!!)