You can find out a baby's gender through several methods at different stages of pregnancy:
- The most common and traditional method is the anatomy scan ultrasound, typically performed around 18 to 22 weeks of pregnancy, with the 20-week mark being optimal. This ultrasound can reveal the baby's gender if the baby is positioned well, with high accuracy but some potential for error depending on position and technician experience.
- Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT), a blood test from the mother that detects fetal DNA, can reliably determine gender as early as 10 weeks into pregnancy. It has high accuracy but is primarily used for screening chromosomal abnormalities.
- More advanced blood tests like the AlphaBiolabs Prenatal Gender Test can determine gender from about 6 weeks with up to 99.9% accuracy by detecting the Y chromosome in the mother's blood.
- Ultrasound techniques like the "nub theory" can offer gender predictions around 11 to 13 weeks, though the accuracy improves closer to 13 weeks or later.
- 3D/4D ultrasounds can sometimes reveal gender more clearly from 16 to 30 weeks, but generally are done later than standard anatomy scans.
In summary, while the typical and widely accessible timing to find out baby's gender is around 18 to 22 weeks via ultrasound, earliest reliable methods using blood tests can provide answers from as early as 6 to 10 weeks into pregnancy.