The earliest you can reliably find out the gender of your baby depends on the method of testing:
- Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT), a blood test that detects fetal DNA in the mother's bloodstream, can identify the baby's gender as early as 10 weeks into pregnancy with about 99% accuracy. This test mainly screens for chromosomal disorders but also reveals gender.
- Ultrasounds are commonly used to determine gender. The baby’s genitals begin forming around week 7, but they are typically indistinguishable until about 14 weeks. Ultrasound guesses may start being made at 14 weeks but are most accurate between 18 to 22 weeks during the anatomy scan, which is around 95% to 99% accurate depending on baby position and technician skill.
- At-home gender test kits claim to detect gender as early as 6 weeks but may have risks of contamination and are not FDA-approved.
- More invasive genetic tests such as chorionic villus sampling (CVS) and amniocentesis, done for medical reasons, can also reveal gender with nearly 100% accuracy from about 10-15 weeks but carry some miscarriage risk.
In summary, if using the most reliable non-invasive options, gender can be known around 10 weeks through NIPT testing, or at 18-22 weeks with a high- confidence ultrasound. At-home kits may give earlier results but with less certainty. These timelines provide the typical earliest points to find out the baby’s gender depending on the chosen method and medical advice.
