Methods and kits are provided for diagnosing, monitoring, or predicting the conditions of pre-eclaimpsia, fetal chromosomal aneuploidy, and pre-term labor in a pregnant woman, as well as for detecting pregnancy in a woman, by quantitatively measuring in the maternal blood the amount of one or more mRNA species encoding human chorionic gonadotropin β subunit (hCG-β), human placental lactogen (hPL), human corticotropin releasing hormone (hCRH), KiSS-1 metastasis-suppressor (KISS1), tissue factor pathway inhibitor 2 (TPFI2), placenta-specific 1 (PLAC1), or glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), and comparing the amount of the mRNA species with a standard control.