Always Keep In Mind That Ultrasound Predictions Of Your Baby’s Sex Can Be Wrong
When having that all-important ultrasound around the 20-week mark of your pregnancy, it can be very exciting to find out the sex of your unborn child. For those of us too impatient to wait until birth, it’s a nice surprise at the mid-way point to help you get through the seemingly interminable last 20 weeks before the baby comes. However, all pregnant women should keep in mind that although usually correct, these sex predictions can sometimes be wrong.
It doesn’t happen often (around 2% of the time), but I suppose that doesn’t matter to the few women it happens to, including this Reddit poster who found out the hard way that ultrasound predictions of your baby’s sex can be wrong:
This poor woman. Obviously, there are worse things in the world, but thinking for months that you are having a child of one sex and buying everything baby accordingly only to find out the ultrasound technician was wrong must be a hard pill to swallow at first. Anecdotally, I know women this has happened to but none of them were as far along as this Redditor. Usually, it is a tech sharing their prediction at a very early stage and the mom finding out at the anatomy scan around 20 weeks that the early guess was incorrect. I would venture that is a lot easier to deal with than finding out a few weeks before you are due, or even, at birth.
As far as my own experiences go, I found out both times. With my first child, I had some health issues requiring several ultrasounds using a high-end machine at the perinatal center. Her female parts were clear as day, even to my husband and I, who don’t have any ultrasound technician training. It was noted again and again every time we had a scan that she was indeed a girl so there was really no question. I had a normal pregnancy with my son so we only got two ultrasounds. Although my gut feeling coupled with the technician’s verdict at the anatomy scan told me I was definitely having a boy, I still wondered a little. Being a “normal” pregnancy meant we were using the regular ultrasound machines and everything looked pretty blurry to me despite my doctor’s assurances that we were having a son.
That said, it never really occurred to me that the predictions could actually be wrong either time, but I suppose I should have kept it in mind since it does happen. I certainly went the route of pink and blue for each so it would have been a bit of a shock to find out we weren’t having a child of the sex we were told we were. Of course, we would have been happy regardless but I am a person who prefers being prepared. Luckily, the predictions are almost always correct but almost isn’t never, so it doesn’t hurt to keep it in the back of your head.
(Image: Shutterstock)
