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How to know the sex of the baby by a simple blood test in the first trimester of pregnancy
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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A new study published in the FASEB Journal describes findings that could lead to the development of noninvasive tests that would allow expectant mothers to find out the sex of their baby in the first trimester of pregnancy. Specifically, scientists in South Korea have found that different ratios of two enzymes (DYS14/GAPDH) can indicate whether the baby will be a boy or a girl. This test could be the first of its kind.
"Currently, early pregnancy sex determination is performed using invasive procedures such as chorionic villus sampling or amniocentesis. However, these procedures carry a risk of miscarriage (about 2%) and cannot be performed before 11 weeks of pregnancy. In addition, first-trimester sex determination using ultrasound does not provide reliable results due to the incomplete development of the external genitalia," said Hyun Mi-ryu, the study's author from Seoul National University in Korea.
To make this discovery, Ryu and colleagues collected maternal plasma from 203 women during the first trimester of pregnancy. The presence of circulating fetal DNA was confirmed using U-PDE9A PCR. Multiplex PCR was also used to simultaneously measure DYS14 and GAPDH in maternal plasma. The results were confirmed by the phenotype of the infant at birth.
"While it will be some time before this test is widely available, the results of this study show that it is possible to predict the sex of an unborn baby within the first few weeks after conception," said Gerald Weissman, MD, editor-in-chief of The FASEB Journal.