Baby's gender: are online self-tests reliable?

Easy DNA, eGenderTest… You can order DNA tests online to discover the gender of your baby early in pregnancy. But how reliable are these tests?

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The tests, which are for sale for a hundred or two hundred euros, depending on how quickly you want results, work on the same principle as the well-known NIP test: searching for the presence of the Y chromosome in the DNA of the mother's blood. If it is present, you are expecting a boy, otherwise it is a girl. Please note that this analysis is not possible in the case of a multiple pregnancy.

Also read: Seeing the gender of a baby on an ultrasound 'from below'

Find out the gender of your baby from 8 weeks of pregnancy

A few years ago, a team of Brazilian researchers developed a kind of early NIP test that was only intended to determine the sex of a baby by means of a drop of blood on the fingertip. These tests, which were criticized at the time for bioethical reasons, promise 98% reliability from 6 weeks of pregnancy (8 weeks of pregnancy if you count from your last menstrual period). For the eGenderTest, for example, you prick your fingertip until small droplets of blood form. You place these on a blotting sheet, which you send to the lab, after which you receive the result. The Belgian company EasyDNA does exactly the same, from 10 weeks of pregnancy, but based on a blood sample that you take yourself via venipuncture (pricking a vein with a hollow needle).

Are these tests reliable?

The eGender test carries the risk of contamination by foreign DNA when handling the material, which could falsify the result. For the test with a traditional blood sample such as EasyDNA, the reliability is higher, because the procedure is the same as for a traditional NIP test and the risk of DNA contamination is limited.

Also read: Nausea during pregnancy: more likely to have a girl?

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