Australian doctors are furious Sydney pharmacies are selling kits for pregnant women to test the gender of their unborn child.
They are worried it will lead to an increase in abortions if the baby's sex is not what the couple wants.
The kits are expected to be available in New Zealand within two months.
Chloe Zanelli is brand new, but for 20 weeks her parents knew to invest in shades of pink.
"We knew it was a girl - we were tested," says mother Sanja Zanelli. "We like to be organised."
Sanja and husband Nic were told at the 20-week ultrasound they were having a girl –that is when most parents can choose to find out the sex from their doctor.
But now expectant parents in Sydney can do it themselves with a DIY kit, which claims to identify the sex of an eight-week-old foetus.
It is a world-first gender prediction test, and costs about $100.
"It's a simple urine kit that you can do at home," says David Portno of manufacturer IntelliGender. "It takes about 10 minutes to get a result of whether it's a boy or a girl - about 90 percent effective."
Doctors are not convinced, and fear the ethical dilemma the test poses.
"There are people going to use this to chose the sex of the baby in pregnancy, and if it's not the sex they desire are they going to seek a termination?" asks Rosanna Capolingua, Australian Medical Association.
The Australian Christian Lobby wants the test banned.
"I think most Australians would be abhorred that a product like this could be used for sex discrimination," says Lyle Shelton.
But some mums believe their right to know outweighs the risk that knowledge may be abused.
"I really think in the end the more we know the better," says new mother Bernadette McKenna. "I think it actually gives us a sense of control."
"This is a direct response to that," says Mr Portnoy, "to help those girls who need more time to prepare for the baby, to find out if it's going to be a boy or a girl early, and for the hundreds and hundreds of girls who are desperate to know the sex but come out of the scan and haven't been able to do that."
Critics fear Australia will become like China, where sex discrimination begins in the womb. They say women who take the test should not be allowed terminations, and thorough checks should now be done.
3 News