Guessing Baby Gender Through the Ages

 

Throughout human history, people have tried to determine the gender of their baby. This isn’t a new concept brought on by modern technology. In addition to one of the most famous types of gender prediction – the Chinese gender prediction chart – there are many historical examples of how people tried to determine their baby’s gender.

For example, in ancient Greece men believed that they could conceive a son if they were to try to conceive while lying on the right side. We know today that this is false, of course. Yet, there are some theories – such as the Shettles method – that attempt to use sexual position during conception to the best possible advantage for getting either a boy or a girl.

In the 1700s in France, me would tie off their left testicle, in the belief that doing so would help them to conceive a child. The theory was that girls were produced by sperm from the left testicle, and that boys were produced from the right. Thus, preventing sperm from the left testicle would result in a boy.

Natural methods

There are some natural methods of conception that may increase the likelihood of conceiving one gender or the other. For example, sperm that produce boys tend to die off quicker than sperm that produce girls. Having sex during ovulation or the day before might increase your chances of conceiving a boy, while having sex three or four days before ovulation might increase your odds of conceiving a girl.

Fertility medicine

For couples who are getting fertility treatments, there may be other options. Some fertility doctors can “spin” out the sperm, setting aside only those sperm that will produce a specific gender. These methods aren’t 100% accurate, but they are certainly more reliable (and safer) than tying off the man’s left testicle.

Baby’s Gender and Pregnancy Symptoms

There has not been any definitive scientific research that suggests a connection between having certain pregnancy symptoms, or the severity of pregnancy symptoms, and the gender of your baby. Having said that, many women believe that their pregnancy symptoms can indeed predict the gender of your baby. Even if it isn’t the most reliable method, it can be fun to consider your pregnancy symptoms in relation to your baby’s gender while you wait for a more reliable method, such as an ultrasound, to tell you with more certainty what the gender of your baby will be.

One pregnancy symptom that has been connected with the gender of your baby has to do with cravings. It is thought that, if you are craving sweets like chocolate, that the gender of your baby will be female. In contrast, your baby would be a boy if you are craving sour things, such as raw lemon juice. Unfortunately, man women crave a combination of things that can be both sweet and sour, making it harder to predict the gender of your baby from this symptom.

Another pregnancy symptom that is thought to predict the gender of your baby is acne. If you break out in severe acne, it is predicted that you will have a girl. If your acne is mild, then you will have a boy.

The most common pregnancy symptom, morning sickness, may be able to be used to predict the gender of your baby as well. If you are severely sick, you will be having a boy. Otherwise, you will be having a girl. Some people think that the timing of morning sickness is able to predict the gender of your baby, too, with morning sickness in the morning being a boy and morning sickness at night being a girl.

Hair growth is another pregnancy symptom that can predict the gender of your baby. If you are having a boy, you should watch out because you are more likely to grow body hair during pregnancy. Conversely, if you are having a girl, you should not expect to grow body hair during pregnancy.

How does the Shettles method predict gender?

The Shettles method uses the timing of conception, along with a variety of other factors, to not only predict gender, but to actually attempt to determine a baby’s gender. Understanding the guiding principles behind the Shettles method is an important part of understanding how exactly the Shettles method can be used to predict gender.

The differences that occur between the sperm that produces a boy (sometimes called “boy sperm”) and the sperm that produces a girl (sometimes called “girl sperm”) is one of the most important parts of the Shettles method. According to the Shettles method, the boy sperm are thought to be smaller, faster, and to die off quicker than the female sperm. Therefore, the timing of ovulation will greatly influence the gender of the baby. If you have intercourse around 2 1/2 to 3 days before ovulation, the Shettles method would predict that your baby’s gender would be female. This is because the boy sperm are more likely to die off in this time frame. If you have intercourse closer to ovulation, the Shettles method predicts the baby’s gender would be male.

Another important part of the Shettles method is the pH environment of the woman’s reproductive tract. The Shettles method predicts that the baby’s gender is more likely to be female if the woman’s tract is more acidic. Conversely, if the woman’s tract is more alkaline, the baby’s gender is more likely to be male. So, if a woman is hoping to have a girl, she wants to have a more acidic environment. This can be accomplished with a variety of methods. The Shettles method predicts that using a douche of water and vinegar before intercourse would help to create a more acidic environment, whereas a douche of water and baking soda would help to create a more alkaline environment, and therefore a boy. Even the position of intercourse and whether or not a woman has an orgasm during intercourse will affect the pH, according to the Shettles method, and these factors also can be used to predict gender or to determine gender.

In order to have a full understanding the specifics of what Dr. Shettles is talking about, you really need purchase Dr. Shettle’s book “How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby.”

Will Heart Rate Predict Gender?

 

It’s not uncommon to want to know your baby’s gender, even before you hit that 20-week ultrasound where you will usually find out.

So many myths surround gender prediction that it’s often difficult to discern the real from the surreal.  Of all the pregnancy myths, gender prediction myths are probably the most encountered. The most common of these rely on fetal heart rate to predict whether the baby will be a boy or a girl.

There are some expectant mothers who declare that a heart rate of 140 beats per minute indicates a girl; others swear that the cut-off is the 150 mark. The truth of the matter is that a normal fetal heart rate fluctuates between 120 to 160 beats per minutes. In fact, if measure the fetal heart rate at ten minute intervals during an hour, you might just get six different heart rates, some below 140 beats and others below 140.

This variation has more to do with the developing fetal brain than the genitalia (although some would argue that the male brain and genitalia are one in the same.) The fetus’ brain is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system (the flight or fight response) and the parasympathetic system (relaxation.) As the fetus develops, these two systems engage in a power struggle. The heart rate speeds up when stimulated by the sympathetic system, and slows down when controlled by the parasympathetic response. We usually listen to the fetal heart for about ten to thirty seconds at a time in the office. If the baby is moving, the rate may be higher than if it were sleeping. 

This variation also applies to men and women, boys and girls, none of whom have different heart rates based on gender. If someone stood behind a curtain, for instance, and I told you that person’s heart rate, you would not be able to determine if that person were male or female.  The same holds true for an unborn baby.  Thus, science again rears its materialistic head and claims this myth is simply not true.  The wonderful thing to remember is that your baby does not easily fit into some descriptive box, and he or she is as individual as you are.

No Baby Gender Prediction Test is Perfect

Wondering about the gender of the baby you’re carrying is as natural as breathing. Any expectant mother who tells you she isn’t curious about whether she’s having a boy or a girl either already knows (or thinks she knows) or is lying.

These days, we expect to know the gender of our babies with relative certainty by the midway point of the pregnancy. Ultrasound technology has advanced to the point that we can know with 90% accuracy whether we’re carrying a boy or a girl at 20 weeks gestation. That’s great, except:

  • No one really wants to wait 20 weeks to find out
  • 90% accuracy still means 1 in 10 will get wrong information about baby’s gender

Some are content to wait and wonder, but many want to know sooner. Since moving the ultrasound up isn’t generally an option, we’re left with using traditional baby gender prediction methods or ponying up to buy commercially available baby gender tests.

Traditional Baby Gender Prediction Methods

Beliefs about traditional baby gender prediction methods range from blind faith to dismissing them as old wives’ tales. Blind faith in a scientifically unproven prediction method probably doesn’t give you any better chances of accurately predicting your baby’s gender than flipping a coin and assigning heads to “it’s a boy” and tails to “it’s a girl.”

Still, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that there might be a very good reason why some old wives’ tales have stuck around long enough to become part of our oral tradition. Maybe there’s some truth to them. Many hold firmly to beliefs such as:

  • Where you’re carrying the baby (high or low) indicates the baby’s gender
  • Suspending your wedding ring on a string over your belly and observing whether it swings back and forth (it’s a boy!) or in circles (it’s a girl!) can predict your baby’s gender
  • Mixing your urine with Draino can predict your baby’s gender: If the color changes, buy blue paint, if it stays the same, invest in pink

At the very worst, these methods offer a 50/50 chance of predicting your baby’s gender and can be fun.

Other Medical Baby Gender Prediction Methods

Other than ultrasound, the two main medical gender prediction methods are amniocenteses and CVS testing. Unfortunately, both of these are more invasive and carry more risk than ultrasound, so doctors won’t order them just to satisfy your curiosity. Generally, you need to have a serious risk factor in your pregnancy before a doctor will order one. These tests are about 99% accurate.

Of course, there is no perfect gender prediction test. Even the most accurate and scientific tests still have the potential to get it wrong. Who knows? Maybe that’s to keep us guessing, if only a little, until the big day finally comes.

Baby Gender Prediction Based On Baby’s Heart Rate

One of the popular theories on baby gender prediction is based on the baby’s heart rate.

The theory states that if your baby’s heart rate was 140 beats per minute and above, you would be having a girl. If the heart rate was under 140 beats per minute, then you would be having a boy.

While this would be a quick and easy baby gender prediction method, there is actully no evidence that this theory is accurate. There is recent study, “Sex, Heart Rate, and Age” from Terry J. DuBose, M.S., RDMS; Director Diagnostic Medical Sonography Program at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, which indicates there is no correlation between fetal heart rate and the gender of the baby.

How Ultrasounds Predict Gender

An ultrasound is one of the most reliable ways to tell your baby’s sex. As a matter of fact, an ultrasound may be the only way, short of something like genetic sampling or amniocentesis, that you will be able to tell your baby’s sex with any degree of certainty. Understanding how an ultrasound can be used to tell your baby’s sex is an important part of knowing how reliable the ultrasound will be.

An ultrasound relies on making a visual representation of what is going on inside of your womb. Using an ultrasound, you can usually see your baby’s heartbeat at around 8 weeks of pregnancy, for example. An ultrasound is also used to measure your baby, and to track your baby’s growth. An ultrasound may be used to try to detect if there are any abnormalities with the way that your baby is forming, as well. And, as has been said before, an ultrasound can indeed be used to tell your baby’s sex.

How an ultrasound is used to tell your baby’s sex relies, at least in part, on the person operating the ultrasound, whether it is an ultrasound technician or whether it is your health care provider. The person operating the ultrasound will be able to tell your baby’s sex by looking for the presence of genitals. If the person that is operating the ultrasound can see a penis, she will predict that your baby’s sex will be male. Telling your baby’s sex when it is a girl, however, can be more difficult. If the person operating the ultrasound actually sees the labia on the ultrasound, your baby’s sex is obviously female. But if the person operating the ultrasound just doesn’t see a penis, it doesn’t mean for certain that your baby’s sex is male. As a matter of fact, without seeing the labia, most of the time the person operating the ultrasound will not tell you that your baby’s sex is female.

There are other factors that will tell whether the ultrasound is reliably telling your baby’s sex. First, the position of your baby can affect whether or not the genitals can be seen. Also, your baby’s age and size will play a role as well.

5 Popular Gender Prediction Methods

Chocolate

 

Even since couples have been having babies, they’ve wanted to figure out ahead of time whether they were having a baby boy or a baby girl. In today’s world, we have medical imaging which can predict a baby’s gender with a high degree of accuracy as early as the twelve weeks into the pregnancy (around the beginning of the second trimester). Still, most parents are curious and many are willing to try more traditional methods of gender prediction while they wait for the official results.

Here are some of the more popular traditional methods of gender prediction:

  1. Watch your cravings. Many people believe that the kinds of food you crave during your pregnancy will give you a hint as to whether you’re having a boy or a girl. Are you craving potato chips and pickles? Stock up on blue paint. Would you rather have chocolate and ice cream? Stick with pink.
  2. Mayan numerology. Lots of airplay has been given to Mayan predictions of the world’s end in December 2012, but they had a more useful legend for expectant parents. According to their tradition, if a mother’s age (in years) and the year of conception are both even or both odd numbers, you will have a girl. If one is even and the other is odd, you’ll have a strapping Mayan warrior.
  3. Zits are for girls. Some believe that you are more likely to break out in zits if you are having a girl. Traditionally, this is believed to be because that little cutie growing inside of you is stealing as much of your beauty as she can grab.
  4. His and Lows. One of the most widely accepted gender prediction methods is to simply look into a full length mirror and see whether you’re carrying the baby high or low. If your baby bump is low, it’s a bouncing baby boy. If you’re carrying higher, it’s a girl. Of course, by the time you can tell whether you’re carrying high or low, you can have the ultrasound technician give you a much more accurate prediction based on what kind of genitalia she sees.
  5. Chinese Prediction Calendar. When a prediction method is used for 7,000 years, there’s a chance there’s something to it. Many Chinese (and an increasing number of Westerners) swear by the Chinese gender prediction calendar, which used a mother’s age at the time of conception and the month the baby was conceived to predict babies’ gender.

Most gender prediction methods have their defenders who swear by them and detractors who think of them as fun but unscientific diversions. Even the worst gender prediction method has a 50% chance of success, though, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with being curious while you wait for the definitive answer.

Dads Want Sons, Moms Want Daughters

 

Put this into the “you already guessed it” category, but some recent research shows that parents often have a preference – a significant preference, even – about the gender of their expected child.

In this survey, participants were asked what gender they’d prefer their firstborn to be, what gender they’d prefer the majority of their children to be, and what gender they would prefer if they were to only have one child.

What the researchers were surprised to find – which we may not be quite as surprised to find – is that men prefer sons, and women prefer daughters.

Evolutionary drive

In some ways, it’s easy to reason why men would want to have sons. After all, men have the possibility of keeping the family gene line going by potentially fathering more women than a single woman could bear. While in most cultures that actual practice wouldn’t be looked upon favorably, you can see where the drive comes from.

For women, however, it’s suggested that there is a more complex reasoning for wanting daughters. Women may have a desire to have the shared experience of pregnancy, or the strong bonds that are perceived to exist between mother and daughter.

Women, according to the researchers, have a “legacy drive” rather than a simple drive to procreate and keep the genetic line going.

Gender selection

There are a number of ways this plays out, of course. In some extreme cases, for example, there is the practice of female feticide, in which girls are aborted and boys are not. This isn’t entirely uncommon in certain countries like India and China. Yet, there is some evidence that it’s happening among certain cultural groups in North America, as well.

This type of gender selection goes way beyond simply trying to give yourself an edge in choosing your baby’s gender. Some ethicists make the case that it’s actually a form of discrimination against women, and if practiced on a large scale could lead to other sociological problems.

One solution proposed in Canada, for example, is to hold off revealing a baby’s gender until after 30 weeks of pregnancy, at which point abortion is no longer a legal option. 

Can pregnancy symptoms predict the gender of your baby?

There has not been any definitive scientific research that suggests a connection between having certain pregnancy symptoms, or the severity of pregnancy symptoms, and the gender of your baby. Having said that, many women believe that their pregnancy symptoms can indeed predict the gender of your baby. Even if it isn’t the most reliable method, it can be fun to consider your pregnancy symptoms in relation to your baby’s gender while you wait for a more reliable method, such as an ultrasound, to tell you with more certainty what the gender of your baby will be.

One pregnancy symptom that has been connected with the gender of your baby has to do with cravings. It is thought that, if you are craving sweets like chocolate, that the gender of your baby will be female. In contrast, your baby would be a boy if you are craving sour things, such as raw lemon juice. Unfortunately, many women crave a combination of things that can be both sweet and sour, making it harder to predict the gender of your baby from this symptom.

Another pregnancy symptom that is thought to predict the gender of your baby is acne. If you break out in severe acne, it is predicted that you will have a girl. If your acne is mild, then you will have a boy.

The most common pregnancy symptom, morning sickness, may be able to be used to predict the gender of your baby as well. If you are severely sick, you will be having a boy. Otherwise, you will be having a girl. Some people think that the timing of morning sickness is able to predict the gender of your baby, too, with morning sickness in the morning being a boy and morning sickness at night being a girl.

Hair growth is another pregnancy symptom that can predict the gender of your baby. If you are having a boy, you should watch out because you are more likely to grow body hair during pregnancy. Conversely, if you are having a girl, you should not expect to grow body hair during pregnancy.