Reasons Pregnant Women seek Prenatal Sonographic Gender Disclosure in Makurdi, Nigeria

Abstract

Fetal gender disclosure, a non-medical prenatal ultrasonography indication, although largely ethically unjustifiable, continues to grow and thrive in demand due to its request by pregnant women. The study aims at establishing the proportion of women who want to know fetal gender during prenatal ultrasound. This was twelve months` prospective study of all pregnant women, 16weeks and above who presented at our facility for antenatal ultrasound in Makurdi from 7th May 2019 to 6th May 2020. A structured questionnaire was used to obtain information on factors influencing their willingness to know the gender of their unborn children. The information collated was entered into statistical package for social science (SPSS) version 23.0 for analysis. P-values=0.005 was considered significant for the study population. Two hundred and fifty (250) pregnant women were recruited for the study. Majority of the women 233(93.2%) showed marked interest in knowing the gender of the fetus, while 17(6.8%) did not. The main reason for wanting to know the sex of the fetus was for easier choice of clothing and naming; whereas the main reason for not wanting sex disclosure was because any child is good. There was no statistically significant correlation between gender preferences and the other variables such as age, educational attainment, tribe and previous miscarriages (P=0.136, 0.485, 0.275 and 0.942 respectively). Majority of the women 233(93.2%) want fetal gender disclosure due to ease of choice of clothing and naming. The deliberate policy of non-disclosure on account of non-medical indication during prenatal ultrasonography is untenable in our environment.