The New "Baby Gender Mentor" - Why Must Parents Know Their Baby-To-Be's Gender?

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 5/13/07 at 11:12am

Baby Gender Mentor is the trade name of a new blood test designed to determine whether a pregnant mother is carrying a boy or a girl. The test is made by Acu-Gen Biolab, Inc., a biotech company in Lowell, Massachusetts, United States, and is marketed to detect the gender of a fetus as early as five weeks after conception. Parents might like to know this information early in order to get a head start on shopping for baby clothes or decorating the nursery; others have cited an interest in preparing themselves or the baby's siblings for gender-specific issues.

The company says that the accuracy of the test exceeds that of conventional methods, such as ultrasonography, amniocentesis, or chorionic villus sampling techniques, and that their test offers "unsurpassed accuracy, unrivaled earliness, and uncompromised promptness". Acu-Gen has chosen not to release details of how the test works or proof of its accuracy, as they consider this information proprietary. This information is detailed on the company's Web site: a real-time polymerase chain reaction is used to amplify DYZ-1, a repetitive sequence found on the Y chromosome, which can be isolated from the mother's blood if the fetus is male. The technique monitors the level of fluorescence energy transfer between nested primers that bind next to one another on a strand of DNA, if the gene is present, allowing a single PCR run to reliably compare the amount of DYZ-1 signal between samples without the need to optimize the number of cycles of amplification. The test made a prominent media debut on 17 June 2005 on The Today Show and about 4,500 people had purchased the test by March 2006.

The test has been the center of several controversies. Customers and scientists question the accuracy of the test, and legal action is being pursued against Acu-Gen as well as a major supplier of the test. Concerns have also been raised by bioethicists that use of the test could lead to practices such as sex selection and Acu-Gen has allegedly used the test to illegally offer medical diagnoses.
"Baby Gender Mentor" by Acu-Gen Biolab, Inc.

[Kringas]

Posted: 5/13/07 at 11:35am

To prepare themselves or the baby's siblings for gender-specific issues, of course.

[blueroses]

Posted: 5/13/07 at 12:32pm

How different is it from a sonogram, really? You can (usually) know at 20 weeks via ultrasound. I can see people wanting to be surprised, but I would definitely want to find out the sex of my baby if I could!

[Chevstriss]

Posted: 5/13/07 at 1:32pm

In countries were they don't want to give birth to females, you can abort early. Can't do that as easily at 20 weeks w/ a sonogram.

it happens.

[shiksa_goddess]

Posted: 5/13/07 at 1:59pm

Eh, if I ever have a child I want to be surprised.

[C is for Company]

Posted: 5/13/07 at 2:05pm

I feel the same way Shiksa.

[AudreyTwoTwo]

Posted: 5/13/07 at 4:50pm

I would love to be surprised, but I would want to know possibly for the baby shower when I have children.