Gender reveal parties

[miccam]

Do you think they should write down the sex of the baby at an NHS ultrasound? Some places will only tell you and not write it on a piece of paper or card for s gender reveal party because it’s a medical test! Should you have to go privately.

How do you deal with the ridiculous complaints, OP?

Any sonographer so I've ever met are very business-like and don't seem to be people I'd like to mess with!

Ok..... I've got my information now.
Let me point out: it's a medical examination for which we have no reason to look at the fetuses genitalia unless there is s sex linked abnormality.
The general public are unaware of ambiguous genitalia.
My greatest concern is when people come to me and the first thing that comes out of their mouths is wanting to know the sex of the baby to be written down for the gender reveal party the same day.......yesterday I diagnosed 2 large spina bifidas ( not compatible with life), one major brain abnormality ( not compatible with life) and one the baby had died. Two of the couples had asked me to write down the gender before I even put the probe on them......

I guess from a lay perspective I would say that because I am aware that they were not primarily looking for the baby's sex that I would want to say at the start that if they could see I wanted to know rather than ask at the end and for them to say it was too late. I think actually we were asked whether we wanted to know. At the time I thought that the baby's sex would be far more influential than I do now in retrospect!

It must be so hard disclosing conditions incompatible with life knowing there is some big party at home. I guess this is where good patient briefing comes in, ideally maybe at a midwife check - your baby seems fine at the moment, you have your scan next week, most babies are fine but approximately 1 in Xx% will have a serious abnormality and for this reason we won't tell you the baby's sex until the end and we don't recommend arranging any 'gender' reveal parties until after the scan.
By the time they are in there with you it is too late. It is incredibly hard to get the level of prior patient information correct, especially in writing. I was reading one recently and for me it was probably insufficient information-because I am geeky and wondered about the internal mechanism- but for others it would be far too complex.

I would feed your observations up the chain. It would make a great research project to develop better prior briefing because clearly for some people it isn't working.

miccam I’ve had some bad news from scans. Each time the sonographier was so kind and caring. I really respect how tough it must be to give devastating news.

I found out the sex privately at 16 weeks. It was my decision to pay for that scan. I didn’t do it so we could have a big garish gender reveal hoohah, I did it so my other DC could see him (I’d never take them to a medical scan) and finding out the sex was just a part of it.

People forget that NHS scans are purely medical and they also naively forget that many people sadly discover bad news- I’ve been there myself twice.

I disapprove of hospitals having a policy of not telling you the sex of the baby if they have identified

Some hospital had that policy in areas where it was more likely that babies of a certain sex were preferred to try and prevent terminations due to sex. I’m pretty sure Luton was one of them when I was pregnant.

If people want to ask for it written down what's the problem

Because it’s not the point of the NHS scan! It’s to see if there’s something wrong with your baby, not so you can have a pink or blue frigging cake. I sometimes wonder if that’s more important.

And it’s hardly a surprise, it’ll be a girl or boy. Be more of a surprise if they announced a kitten or baby elephant. 🙄

The only thing I cared about at my 20 week scans was ‘was my baby ok’. I think the world has forgotten that these are anomaly scans. This gender reveal attention seeking bullshit has gone crazy.

Personal survey over..... won't be reading anymore.... interesting feedback, thanks for your input

They are a pile poop.
Same as baby showers. Don't believe presents should be given until the bundle of joy is in your arms.

As a sonographer you should know better than to use the word gender instead of sex.

But yes they should pay privately.

Twisted Christmas....... I interchange the noun 'sex ' (Late Middle English (denoting the two categories, male and female): from Old French sexe or Latin sexus.) with gender because despite social media etc, 25 years of experience has taught me that people don't always understand certain terms.... eg I use the word thigh bone rather than femur! I think you may be thinking of the verb 'sex'

I'm referring to the noun which denotes the two main classes that humans fall in to. Gender is a social construct. You're not looking to see if they fit into social stereotypes of boys liking blue and construction toys or girls like pink and dolls and glitter are you??

Gender reveal parties and baby showers are the most ridiculous trends at the moment.

If your hospitals policy is for you to tell them verbally then do that.

People seem to forget that these scans aren't photoshoots for baby and for you to plan your party, their medical tests to check your child is healthy and that you're healthy.

TwistedChristmas do stop.

Gender/sex so what. You know what the OP is on about and are clearly looking for a reason to start up that debate. Move on somewhere else.

I've stared a thread with the word 'gender' in it which implies you are of the English level of knowing that word. When you are dealing with those of limited education or limited English, it is commonplace to interchange words if they are grammatically correct. Maybe the area of the country you scan in doesn't have these issues. It was also the norm to dress boys in pink including dresses until approximately the turn of the 20th century in a lot of Europe including this country. Colour and toys types are not my concern in this thread.

I was just desperate to know if my baby was healthy at my scan, I was so scared it would be bad news because I couldn't feel anything moving yet and had been through so much to get to that point.

Must be nice if silly gender parties are the only thing you have to worry about.

I did cry when told the sex mind you, it might have seemed to the sonographer like I was disappointed and would have liked the other sex but I'm pretty sure I'd have cried either way.
It was just such a relief to know there really was a little person swimming about in there and it made me emotional. Imagining a little boy or girl makes it more real somehow.

I was just desperate to know if my baby was healthy at my scan

Must be nice if silly gender parties are the only thing you have to worry about. hmm

I agree, I was shitting myself at my anomaly scan and cried buckets when told everything was fine as my older daughter has numerous serious health conditions.

maybe the nhs should charge for a written letter, as it does for other similar issues.

Yes you can have a proforma letter with the sex/gender (because it is gender, these people are going to go home and colour code their baby according to societal norms). Pick it up from the receptionist on the way out, after you’ve paid your £70.

I do sympathise with staff though. So many people now go to their 20wk scan thinking the most important thing is finding out the sex rather than the health of the baby.

Gender reveal party - the tackiest thing I have ever seen 😳🤷🏻‍♀️😱😮

The sonographer at my 20 week scan with ds4 wrote "boy" on a scrap of paper for us. We had our older dc with us and we didn't want them to know the sex, although I can't remember why now. This was the same scan when they discovered a problem, although not life threatening thankfully although it has involved nearly 20 operations for ds4 who is now 6. It was nice to know the sex as I think it felt more real for some reason. With dc5 we were both very poorly and dh found it helpful that we knew the sex and had a name chosen. It was over a week before I was coherent enough to discuss something like that. I think gender reveal parties aren't a good idea though, especially when they are arranged before the anomaly scan.

Gender reveal party - the tackiest thing I have ever seen 😳🤷🏻‍♀️😱😮

Lmfao!!!! This is hilarious! They are tacky thought, I mean no one cares that much about the gender of a baby except the couple so why would you have one?

@miccam reading your updates and one has really worried me, well I was already super anxious about my 20w scan in 10 days time having lost 2 pregnancies last year. I've been trying to tell myself that a tiny % of people get bad news at their 20w scan but clearly your update on what you found in 4 patients yesterday is way more than a small %. In your experience what % really get bad news? I'm so so anxious.

In relation to your OP I agree, thought it was common knowledge it's an anomaly scan and basically a medical check on the health of the baby not a fun activity to find out sex for some tacky tasteless grabby party. If people want to know the sex of their baby for a party they should pay to get a private scan or Harmony test.

AllyJacko’s first post is to bump an old thread with a comment full of emojis.

The comments on here are absolutely vile and I can't actually believe what I'm reading. Just because you may not want a baby shower or a gender reveal party does not give you the right to outright degrade and insult all the people who do! These events bring real joy into some people's lives !! Maybe they've been trying for years, possibly IVF, or miscarriages, or maybe sad things happening in their personal lives so they want to celebrate with their friends and family.

I for one had a baby shower with my daughter and LOVED celebrating with my family and friends that I was pregnant!!
And I also was excited to find out the gender of my baby in the 20 week scan... of course I wanted to know she was ok ... but finding out her gender was also exciting for me! What the hell is wrong with that?!?!

And me and my partner are currently Trying To conceive again.... and when we do I most likely will have a gender reveal party / baby shower. Or maybe even bloody both. Because a new life is a reason to frickin celebrate for god sake! It brings friends and family together.

Some people are just so bloody negative these days it's unreal.

Not everyone has to be interested in the same things. Not everyone has to celebrate in the same way.

Jesus Christ we are humans. Not fucking robots!