A test to allow pregnant women to determine the sex of their unborn baby is now available in the UAE for the first time.
The test, which is widely available across the US and Europe, but banned in China and India, can be done as early as seven weeks, health experts said.
Laboratory firm Medsol is offering the test, called “pink or blue”, in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and Al Ain.
“The first thing a woman wants to know when told she is pregnant is the sex of the baby,” Jihad Sa’adeh, general manager of business development for Medsol, told Gulf News.
The test works by detecting minute quantities of the baby’s male or female DNA in the mother’s blood and is 95 per cent accurate, the paper reported.
The test is banned in India and China because some parents will abort their baby if it is a girl, preferring to have a boy. It is prevalent in China where a one baby per couple rule is enforced.
