by Eve Redstone

Created on: March 19, 2008

A sonogram can never be one hundred per cent right about the sex of your baby, ninety-nine point nine in the case of a skilled operator, and a baby late in pregnancy, but never one hundred per cent.

The hospital I used to work in refuses to tell couples what sex they think the bay is, this is as a result of law suits. Expectant mothers were told what sex the sonographer thought the bay might be, and decorated rooms, bought clothes, wrote birth announcements, all on the basis of this guess. When the guess was wrong they sued. Both cases were unsuccessful, but the result is that in this hospital at least parents are never told, even if the sonographer is certain.

If for some reason you have to have multiple examinations , especially at the end of pregnancy then usually if the baby is a boy it becomes fairly obvious. The sex of a baby girl is less certain on sonogram. One sonographer told me that if she can't tell what sex the baby is it is usually a girl.

I remember being told during an examination in my third pregnancy that my baby was a boy. I queried how they could be sure, and the doctor laughed, and said he was sure. As it turned out he was right, but I had been told equally certainly during my second pregnancy that I was having a boy, and had a girl.

During the sonogram I was more concerned that the baby was growing healthily, had two arms, two legs, a heart, brain and lungs. I was amazed that this miracle could tell me that the baby's kidneys were working, and didn't really believe I was pregnant until I saw the heart beating.

The only way to be sure of your unborn baby's sex if if you undergo and amniocentesis, a procedure that is too risky to undertake just to find out this information.

The least of my concerns was what sex the baby was, and that is good advice to all expectant mothers. Modern sonograms can deliver miraculous three dimensional images of your baby in the womb and the sex of the baby may be clear, but I would never rely on the guess, however educated, of the operator to determine how I would decorate the baby's new room, or what clothes I bought.

I might harbor secret hopes and expectations, but they would always be touched by an ounce of common sense and caution. The sonogram is a picture of something as yet unseen and cannot be relied upon to tell you the sex of your unborn child.

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