THE PNDT ACT
This is about the form that you sign before your first ultrasound scan to see your concieved baby for the first ever time.
Congratulations! You got the two pink lines. You announced the news to your husband. You planned your appointment with the gynecologist. The gynecologist advised for a Transvaginal scan along with other investigations to confirm your pregnancy and to rule out any other existing medical illness coinciding with the pregnancy. You are excited to see the tiny life growing within you in the scan. While waiting for your turn in the queue, a person walks up to you and asks you to produce your ID proof. She/he takes a photocopy of it. Then you are handed over a pen to sign a form.

It is a consent form. By signing it you agree to undergo the process of examination in order to find out about any deformity or abnormality in the developing baby. It also includes an undertaking that the sex of the fetus will not be disclosed to you and you are aware of the consequences in case of breach of this undertaking. The doctor/ radiologist also sign the form below it for having explained the contents of the consent form to you in detail.

This consent is a part of our constitutional law under THE PRECONCEPTION AND PRENATAL DIAGNOSTIC TECHNIQUES (PROHIBITION OF SEX SELECTION) ACT, 1994. It was established to check female feticide and correct the skewed sex ratio of the country. But due to its poor implementation, the rules and punishments were made stricter and harsher by an amendment in 2006.

All the diagnostic centers follow the rules laid down by this act to get registered license for conducting the ultrasound. So it is mandatory o sign this consent form. If the doctor or the diagnostic center is found guilty of any breach in following the rules of the act or any misconduct is detected then the registration of the center is canceled. The license of the doctor also gets temporarily cancelled for first time and permanently in the second time. Fine and imprisonment is also imposed.

Despite all these measures, illegal practices of sex determination and sex selection is still going on in our country.

I am also surprised by the number of questions I am seeing everyday on this app regarding gender determination. Yes, sex of your fetus can be determined by ultrasound only as early as the 12th week of gestation, i.e. end of your first trimester. That’s science but the PC-PNDT act is for the society, for the country.

Gender guessing as a part of your baby shower game is really fun. You may also listen to some old wives tales and various techniques to do the gender guess work. But you can only cross your fingers to see the surprise. It’s hard to keep waiting for it for 9 long months, but surprise is surprise after all. Illegal and malpractices will continue in some nook or corner of the country always, but if a small part of our eagerly happiness gets sacrificed to save even one female infant in the womb then I feel it’s worth the sacrifice.

So no bars on gender guessing do it as much as you want and have a blast on your baby shower. But stay away from the game of sex determination and even the thought of sex selection. As being born is the right of every fetus, soon after conception, irrespective of whatever sex organs it develops in the 12th week.

I would also suggest and request expecting moms not to indulge in such questions on any social media platforms as it only demonstrates the ignorance still prevalent in our society. It’s the century of woman empowerment, lets empower the woman from the womb itself, by being a gender unbiased mom. #genderequality
#genderguessing
#genderanxiety
#momathon3