The ultrasound identification of fetal gender at the gestational age of 11–12 weeks

INTRODUCTION: The early prenatal identification of fetal gender is of great importance. Accurate prenatal identification is currently only possible through invasive procedures. The present study was conducted to determine the accuracy and sensitivity of ultrasound fetal gender identification. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The present cross-sectional study was conducted on 150 women in their 11(th) and 12(th) weeks of pregnancy in Hamadan in 2014. Ultrasound imaging performed in the 11(th) and 12(th) weeks of pregnancy for fetal gender identification identified the fetus either as a girl, a boy, or as a “gender not assigned.” Frequency, sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, and accuracy of the gender identification was assessed using SPSS version 20. The significant level was 0.05 in all analyses. RESULTS: Of the total of 150 women, the gender was identified as female in 32 (21.3%), as male in 65 (43.3%), and not assigned in 53 (35.3%); overall, gender identification was made in 64.6% of the cases. A total of 57 male fetuses were correctly identified as boys, and 8 female fetuses were wrongly identified as boys. As for the female fetuses, 31 were correctly identified as girls, and 1 was wrongly identified as a boy. The positive predictive value for the ultrasound imaging gender identification was 87.6% for the male fetuses and 96.8% for the female fetuses. CONCLUSION: The present study had a much higher gender identification accuracy compared to other studies. The final success of fetal gender identification was about 91% in the 11(th) and 12(th) weeks of pregnancy.