Most women find out the sex of their baby at the time of the anatomy ultrasound at around 18 to 20 weeks. In some cases, you might find out earlier. If you happen to have an ultrasound anytime after 14 weeks, usually the sex is visible. Ultrasounds at around 12 weeks can sometimes lead to a guess about the baby’s sex, but are only about 85% accurate. Sometimes, women have genetic testing called noninvasive prenatal screening (NIPS) as early as 10 weeks gestation that can accurately reveal the baby’s sex. However, finding out the baby’s sex is not a good reason alone to have this test done.
Many women choose to not find out the sex of their baby until after it is born, but most women can’t handle not knowing. If you’re planning a gender reveal party, make sure you tell your doctor and your ultrasonographer ahead of time so that they don’t give away something accidentally. They can always put the answer in a sealed envelope. If you don’t want to find out until after the baby is born, make sure you tell whoever might do an ultrasound at any time that you don’t want to know; if it’s a later ultrasound, they will assume that you already know and they may say or show something that you don’t want.
The scientific ways of determining the baby’s sex are:
- Ultrasound
- Noninvasive prenatal testing
- Amniocentesis
- CVS
There are also some not so scientific ways that you’ll read about on the Internet. None of these work:
- Fetal heart rate (under 140=boy, over 140=girl)
- Chinese gender charts
- Wedding ring test (pendulum=boy, circle=girl)
- Peeing on Draino (brown=boy, no color change=girl)
- Carrying high vs low (high=girl, low=boy)
- Morning sickness (bad=girl)
- Location of weight (hips and butt=girl, belly=boy)
- Placental location (right=boy, left=girl)
Most of these are harmless fun, but there are some products on the market that take advantage of these myths. Don’t waste your money.