Sex detection of 5-week-old fetus

Korean scientists have successfully developed the method of detecting fetal sex at 5 weeks old.

Knowing the sex of the fetus early is very important for mothers with disease genes like muscular dystrophy. If the fetus is a girl who will not inherit bad genes while the male fetus has up to 50% of the risk of some genetic diseases from the mother. In this case, parents can choose to keep or leave the fetus.

Researcher Hyun Mee Ryu and colleagues at Cheil General Hospital and Seoul Women's Health Care Center, developed a method to test the PDE9E gene in the mother's blood. The change of PDE9E gene is related to the presence of Y chromosome, from which the sex of the fetus can be known in the early stages of pregnancy with complete accuracy.

Tested on 203 mothers, scientists said it was possible to determine the sex of the fetus at 5 weeks old.