Foetal sex-test kit sparks concern

A NEW test that allows women to know the gender of the foetus just a few weeks into pregnancy has sparked fears of a rise in the sex selection of babies.

Until recently, the chance to discover the gender of the foetus was only offered three to four months into a pregnancy, when a routine ultrasound is carried out.

Now women in the US are being offered a blood test as early as the fifth week - carried out at home with a simple finger-prick kit for collecting a blood sample.

Just two or three days after posting the test to a laboratory for processing, a pregnant woman can know what colour to paint the nursery - or even decide whether to get an abortion if she wants a child of the opposite sex, a prospect that worries ethicists.

The $275 test works by detecting and analysingfoetal DNA floating in the mother's blood, a method that researchers say holds promise for serious clinical uses, from cancer testing to prenatal diagnosis of Down's syndrome.

The test, called the Baby Gender Mentor, is meant for "the type of woman who can't wait to open Christmas presents", says Sherry Bonelli, president of Mommy's Thinkin', the company that is marketing the test at an online pregnancy store.

But ethicists asked about this early, commercial application of foetal DNA testing say it raises concerns about sex selection, particularly in societies where boy babies are preferred.

"You can tiptoe around it, but the fact is that if you're sending information about sex, then you're in the sex-selection testing business," says bioethicist Arthur Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania.

Sex selection, mainly using ultrasound tests, is considered a growing and potentially destabilising problem in parts of Asia. In its most extreme form, parents kill girl babies.

In the US, " there's always that slim possibility" that a woman could use the new gender test for sex selection, Bonelli said, "but I think the numbers are so small it makes that concern insignificant".

Scientific work on foetal DNA analysis has been racing ahead since the late 1990s, when researchers first discovered, to their amazement, that in a pregnant woman's blood, some "cell-free" DNA - DNA that is floating around in clumps rather than contained in the nucleus of a cell - comes from the foetus. The foetal DNA is believed to get into the mother's blood through the barrier of the placenta.

Baby Gender Mentor hit the market on June 17. In the laboratory, technicians amplify the DNA and then look for the presence of a Y chromosome, which only males have. Presence of the chromosome generally means the foetus must be male; its absence means a female. - ©NYT News Service