Baking Soda Pregnancy Test: How Reliable Is It Really?

As soon as you discover about your pregnancy, it is quite natural to be curious about your baby’s gender. While you wait for your foetus to grow enough for an ultrasound sex determination test, can you conduct the baking soda pregnancy test at home to satisfy your curiosity? Let’s read to find out.

The news of pregnancy is one of the happiest occasions for most couples, especially if they had been trying to conceive for a long time. Whether you are a first time parent or an experienced one, the joy and excitement of having a new baby transcends all the challenges that come with it. During this phase, thousands of questions and curiosities intrigue the minds of the expecting couple, of which, the sex of the unborn baby usually comes up as top.

Interestingly, there are several traditional ways of predicting whether your baby is a boy or a girl such as by using the baking soda pregnancy test. This simple and cost-effective gender test can be performed at home and requires only baking soda and a clean container.

Baking soda and a clean container is all you need for this Baking soda pregnancy test. | Photo: iStock

Baking soda pregnancy test is a very easy test that you can perform on your own. All you need is a clean small container to collect your urine sample and a small quantity of baking soda from your kitchen. To take the test, take some urine to be tested in a sanitised container, preferably in the morning. Make sure that it is the first urine of the day, right after you wake up. The first urine sample is used for the test because it is not as diluted as it will be subsequently.

After collecting the urine, add equal amount of baking soda in the container. Wait for a while and observe the reaction of baking soda with the urine sample. If the solution fizzes, it is believed that the baby is a boy. It there is no fizz or reaction and the urine remains the same, then it is believed to be a girl.

Baking soda pregnancy test does not have scientific credibility. It is possible that the results may be accurate in 50 per cent of cases, but that is due to coincidence. Baking soda, also known as sodium bicarbonate, reacts with acids to produce the fizzing effect. So, if your urine is acidic due to any reason, the reaction of the baking soda with your urine will cause the fizz in the sample.

Your urine’s acidity depends upon many factors, such as your diet, hydration levels, urinary tract infections and the like. Certain types of food can lead to urine becoming more acidic while some food items has no influence to the acidity of urine. If you have severe morning sickness with frequent vomiting, it might be a case of dehydration, causing your urine to be more acidic. If you are suffering from a urinary tract infection or kidney stones, your urine is likely to be more acidic. All these factors suggest that the acidity of your urine can vary every time you take the test, which leads to varying results. Therefore, the baking soda pregnancy test is not a reliable test to predict the sex of your child.

For an accurate measure of the sex of your unborn baby, you must consult a gynaecologist and try one of these methods that are scientifically proven and much more reliable than the baking soda pregnancy test.

Ultrasound

A 2-D ultrasound done at around 20 weeks of pregnancy is a promising way of determining the sex of your baby, with almost 98.2 per cent accuracy. The ultrasound conducted by your doctor or ultrasound technician will allow you to see the image of your baby’s anatomy, including their developing genitals. These images help in ascertaining the sex of the baby.

Photo: iStock

DNA Test

Several DNA tests conducted with the help of blood samples can determine the sex of the baby. Tests such as Harmony, Verifi, Maternit21 and Panorama are blood tests that look for the presence of a Y chromosome. Since females do not carry Y chromosomes, the presence or absence of Y chromosome will verify the sex of the baby. Sample containing Y chromosome means that the baby is a boy, while the absence of Y chromosome will confirm that the baby is a girl.

Amniocentesis

This invasive test requires a skilled medical practitioner. A small amount of amniotic fluid in a pregnant woman’s amniotic sac is collected via a needle. This fluid, which contains the cells shed by the foetus, is then analysed to detect any genetic defects in the growing foetus. The cells in the amniotic fluid can also reveal the gender of the baby.

Preparing an amniocentesis needle for amniotic fluid extraction. | Photo: iStock

Chorionic Villus Sampling

This test is also invasive in nature and is performed to determine if the baby has any congenital defects. In this test, the doctor inserts a needle into the uterus through the vagina and cervix to extract a sample of a tissue in the placenta called villi. This tissue contains a lot of genetic information about the baby such as its sex or its genetic disorders, if any.

The above mentioned methods not only determine the sex of a child, but also analyses the health of the growing foetus. It is more wise to rely on these methods to find out your child’s gender, rather than using the baking soda pregnancy test. To satisfy your curiosity, you can try the baking soda gender test for fun while awaiting the birth of your child. However, it is always advisable to consult your gynaecologist for confirmed results.

Source: Medical News Today, Healthline

Also READ: 4 Essentials Tips For Effective Preconception Planning

This article was republished with the permission from TheAsianParent.