Test Methodology
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.
The regulatory hurdles that apply to pharmaceutical products and diagnostic tests do not apply to the Baby Gender Mentor test because it does not diagnose, prevent or treat a disease. In particular, Acu-Gen is not obliged to disclose results of any tests or patient trials of the test that they may have conducted. One unnamed Acu-Gen spokesperson was quoted as saying the 99.9% accuracy figure is based on 20,000 births, but that the company "won't publish results until it has patented its technology".
The PCR technique monitors the level of fluorescence energy transfer between nested primers that bind next to one another on a strand of DNA, if the gene is present, allowing a single PCR run to reliably compare the amount of DYZ-1 signal between samples without the need to optimize the number of cycles of amplification. Acu-Gen lists several scientific papers that are related to this field of study, but the cited publications do not refer specifically to the Baby Gender Mentor test.
According to the company, the Baby Gender Mentor laboratory analysis will report one of four possible results to the pregnant woman: Male, Female, Twins, or Inconclusive. A result of "Male" indicates that only male fetal DNA was present and so the pregnant woman must be carrying one or more boys. Similarly, a result of "Female" indicates that only female fetal DNA was detected and the woman is expecting one or more girls. If the result is "Twins" then both male and female fetal DNA were detected and the pregnancy includes one or more boys and one or more girls. If the test is "Inconclusive" then Acu-Gen refers the customer to their warranty policy and procedure.
Read more about this topic: Baby Gender Mentor
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