You've just found out you're pregnant. It's natural to be curious about baby's gender – will it be a boy or a girl? In the past, you had to wait until your 4th or 5th month before an ultrasound could (possibly) determine your baby's sex. But recently, gender prediction kits for home use have been popping up that claim to allow expectant parents to test the sex of their baby as early as 10 weeks. There are even gender prediction kits to use before conception. But are they worth the money? And more important, do they deliver as promised?

There are many reasons for wishing to know the sex of your baby early on. "I really wanted to know the gender of our child because it was our first," says Lacey Updegraff of Opelika, Ala., who used a gender prediction kit during her pregnancy. "I was just really excited to get started on the room and things like that."

Some reasons for wanting to know the sex of your baby are more serious. "There are reasons, both psychological and medical, to want to know the gender of the fetus," says reproductive endocrinologist Dr. Mary Hinckley of the Reproductive Science Center of the San Francisco Bay Area. "It may help with bonding; it may help predict the incidence of disease that may be gender-linked. There are certain diseases that are only passed from the mom to a son. There are also certain diseases that are more likely in a specific gender. Often, I see patients who may have a son with autism, who worry that if they have another son, it may increase the risk of autism. Or I see a family where many women get breast cancer, and they hope for a son to lessen the chance he may be affected."

Although the fetus already is the gender it is, the knowledge may help parents be better prepared for the future, says Dr. Hinckley.

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