If you choose to find out the gender of your baby, it's a very exciting moment.

 

For the majority of us, the gender is revealed at the 18 to 20-week scan, offered by the NHS.

 

However, a non-invasive prenatal test (NIPT) used to detect Down syndrome and other genetic conditions could inform couples of the sex much earlier in pregnancy.

 

Fears have been raised by Labour that parents could use the test, which will be given by the NHS as part of its antenatal screening to detect abnormalities, as an aid for gender selection. 

 

 

Although parents-to-be can only use the NHS screening to detect conditions, couples could potentially go private and find out the gender.

 

Labour MP Naz Shah highlighted the cultural preference for boys in some communities, which could put pressure on parents-to-be 'to adopt methods such as NIPT to live up to expectations of family members.'

 

‘NIPT screenings should be used for their intended purpose, to screen for serious conditions such as Down syndrome,’ added the shadow minister for women and equalities.

 

‘The Government needs to look into this exploitative practice and enforce appropriate restrictions,’ she concluded on the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme.

 

 

The NHS will offer an expectant mother a blood test, along with an ultrasound within the first three months of pregnancy to detect any abnormalities.

 

The NIPT technique can determine the sex of a foetus from nine to 10 weeks of pregnancy.

 

Last year, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics published a report which uncovered websites offering parents a 'baby gender test' for the sum of £170.

 

The council said that unless medical professionals are diagnosing a gender-related medical condition, there is no clinical need to discover the baby's sex at such an early stage.

 

 

The researchers went on to issue a warning about sex selection.

 

Despite a small amount of evidence that gender-selective terminations were happening in the UK, they said there was a ‘real possibility that permitting NIPT for sex determination in the UK may be encouraging sex selection’. 

 

Currently, it is illegal to terminate a pregnancy based on the gender of the baby, however, there are some exemptions. 

 

The council added that those laws are not ‘clear-cut’.

 

 

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said it will ‘continue to review the evidence’.

 

‘The prenatal test is never meant to be used for gender,’ a spokesman told the BBC.

 

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