Baby Gender Mentor is the trade name of a controversial blood test designed to determine whether a pregnant woman is carrying a male or female child. The test is made by Acu-Gen Biolab, Inc., a biotech company in Lowell, Massachusetts, United States, and is marketed to detect the sex of a fetus as early as five weeks after conception. The test made a prominent media debut on 17 June 2005 on The Today Show. Thousands of people have purchased the test.

The test and its competitors represent an alternative to medical procedures which determine the sex of the fetus, such as amniocentesis and ultrasound. One possible advantage of using blood tests for prenatal sex testing is the minimally invasive nature of this method. In contrast, there are small, demonstrated risks associated with amniocentesis, and some authorities believe that there could be theoretical risks associated with ultrasound. Women may have many motivations for using a test to learn the sex of their fetuses early in pregnancy, including mental preparation and planning gender-specific purchases, or more controversially, sex-selective abortion. The Baby Gender Mentor test is not regulated by the FDA, nor approved for diagnosis of any disease.

According to the Baby Gender Mentor web site,[13] the test involves using real-time polymerase chain reaction and a proprietary technology to detect markers on the Y-chromosome, which can be isolated from the pregnant woman’s blood if the fetus is male. However, the company has kept details of the test proprietary, refusing to publish their data until they receive a patent.

Acu-Gen say that after eight weeks, accuracy is consistent throughout the pregnancy and the test may be taken at any time. The test kit costs US$25.00. To use, the pregnant woman pricks her finger to draw a small amount of blood, which is placed on card; the card is placed in the kit and sent to Acu-Gen, where the test is processed for an additional US$250 fee.

Acu-Gen is a biotech company in Lowell, Massachusetts and is led by Cheng Wang, the company’s President. A National Public Radio reporter visited the address given as the headquarters of Acu-Gen in September 2005. They found that the building at that address contains a Hindu temple and a company called BioTronics, but no sign for Acu-Gen. According to NPR, their inquiries at BioTronics revealed the two companies have common ownership, but no one was available to comment for the NPR story. Acu-Gen does not mention a direct link to BioTronics in their marketing materials. However, they do state on their web-site that they utilize BioTronics’ AmpliSensor technology, according to the Baby Gender Mentor website. AmpliSensor is a real-time quantitative PCR assay invented by Wang and marketed by BioTronics, according to the Baby Gender Mentor website.  Thanks for visiting Sexing Kits – a website for exploring the topic of prebirth sex determination and prebirth sex selection.