Gender reveal parties, which in recent years have become increasingly popular and have sometimes involved dramatic stunts, have already killed four people so far in 2021.
In the most recent incident, two pilots died in a plane crash on Tuesday after a gender reveal party stunt went devastatingly wrong, TMZ reported. The plane was rented from a company called Xomex to perform tricks in front of a family and their friends ahead of the gender announcement that afternoon.
In video footage, taken at around 3.30 p.m. local time, guests can be heard shouting "It's a girl!" as the aircraft flies across the sea with a sign trailing it revealing the unborn child's sex.
Moments later, the aircraft nosedived into the sea, over the Caribbean Sea in the Nichupte Lagoon off the coast of the Mexican city of Cancun, killing both pilots.
Sadly, this isn't the first time that people have died at gender reveal parties.
On 22 March, Demetris Johnson, 21, was attending a gender reveal ceremony for a family friend in Washington, D.C., when another man arrived and opened fire, killing him and wounded another man, NBC4 Washington reported.
A month before, an effort to impress family and friends at a gender-reveal event cost an excited father-to-be his life. New York state police said in a statement that Christopher Pekny, 28, was assembling a device that was meant to be used at a gender-reveal party in the town of Liberty, New York. The device exploded while he was building it, the police added.
Blogger Jenna Karvunidis is credited with popularising gender reveal parties when she held one back in 2008, where she cut into a pink cake. But since she held that party, she has urged people to abandon the trend in the name of safety.
These parties have become more popular and many people have resorted to dramatic stunts and gestures at these events to impress friends and family.
Explosions and fires from the parties have caused multiple wildfires, including one in San Bernardino, California in September that burned more than 90,000 acres of land and led to the death of a firefighter.
Deadly accidents have also been happening at other events celebrating new-borns. On 8 February, in the Gaines Township in Michigan, a couple fired a cannon at a baby shower, but accidentally killed one of their friends.
The couple bought the cannon at an auction before the party and had previously fired it several times safely, the police said at the time. But the plan turned into a disaster when the gunpowder inside the cannon exploded, smashing its metal frame and throwing shards into the air. A piece of the cannon flew about 10 to 15 feet and struck Evan Thomas Silva, 26, critically injuring him. He later died in hospital.
