Hyderabad: A new blood test, where a pinprick sample of the mother’s blood can be analysed to determine the sex of the unborn child, has created a lot of controversy in the scientific circles.
The blood sample is analysed for foetal DNA found in the mother’s blood through which genetic disorders along with sex of the baby can be determined. This can be done in eight weeks of the baby’s growth. Indian doctors and scientists are concerned that the test can give rise to sex-selective abortion particularly in India and China.
Dr Laxmi Kiran, senior gynaecologist explained, “There are patients who opt for these kinds of tests in special cases when there is a history of Down’s syndrome or any other hereditary problems. But they go abroad and do the testing. The blood samples are sent from India to laboratories in the world for chromosomal testing, but the reports do not reveal the sex of the child as it is not allowed.”
Experts state that eight weeks is too early to determine the sex of the child.
The child is fully-developed only at 12 weeks.
Radiologist Dr Shaikh Mohammed Sikandar of department of PET-CT and Nuclear Medicine at Yashoda Hospitals explained, “The Indian government is very strict about gender testing of the baby. Those who are indulging in these activities are being punished. Also, tissue transmission is not possible at eight weeks of pregnancy.”
In the population Census of 2011 it was revealed that the man-woman ratio in India is 940 females to a 1,000 men.
As such it is important that the girl child is allowed to be born and not aborted just because her gender upsets her patriarchal family.
The pinprick test has been created by Brazilian researchers to detect Down's syndrome and other genetic conditions. But the scientists are divided over the availability of this test in India as they fear that pinprick test can fuel genocide for female babies.
In India, gender determination is a crime and any doctor who indulges in revealing the sex of the child, can be tried under criminal law. But with the recent arrests of quacks and also doctors in the city, radiologists and imaging doctors state that there is no need to fear as such tests will never make it to India.
