There are many parents who would like to be able to choose the sex of the baby and many who are looking for ways to achieve it with methods as debatable (and in my opinion as unscientific) as the Chinese table or the Mayan table.
Other parents decide to try to achieve it with other methods with more scientific basis or, at least, with a little logic behind, one of them being the one makes the sex of the baby depend on the diet that the mother follows during pregnancy.
There are people who believe in it and there are others who are more skeptical. Let's talk a little about it to see what studies exist in this regard.
In 2007, Lola told us about a study conducted with mice that seemed to show that the higher the blood glucose levels of the rats, the more likely it was that male mice were born. When they were medicated to lower these levels, the tendency was reversed and more female mice were born.
The following year a study was carried out following the premise of this previous study with mice, to try to see if this trend also occurred in humans.
Researchers at the Universities of Exeter and Oxford studied a sample of 740 women from the United Kingdom who were pregnant with their first baby and still did not know the sex of their future baby. They passed some detailed questionnaires to know what was the usual consumption of more than 150 common elements and also assessed the amount and type of cereals they ate at breakfast, the margarine and milk they used, etc. to know what the pre-pregnancy feeding had been and to know what the usual feeding was during the pregnancy.
The researchers noted that women who consumed more calories at the time of conception had more boys than girls. In fact, they divided the total number of mothers into three groups, according to the amount of calories they took. 56% of the mothers in the group with the most daily calories ingested had male children. On the other hand, in the group that consumed fewer calories during conception, the number of male children corresponded to 45%.
In other words, women who consume more calories when they are looking for a baby are more likely to have a male child than those who consume fewer calories, who are more likely to have a girl.
According to this study, if a woman wants to have a male child she should eat an abundant plate of breakfast cereals, eat bananas and use more salt in meals, for example, to consume 400 more calories daily. Doing all this is more likely to have a male child, although it could also happen that on the day of birth a girl was born and the mother dragged a few extra kilos.
The sperm carry the genetic load, but the woman determines which one is fertilized
Let's say that this study confirms the theory that says that sperm carry the genetic load that dictates whether it will be a boy or a girl, something that is totally unalterable, but that Depending on the conditions in the mother's womb, some sperm will be more likely to fertilize the egg than others.
We talked about this a couple of years ago when we showed the theories of Dr. Baretta, who said that the sperm “Y” (boy) and “X” (girl) behave differently and that mothers could modify some behaviors to favor the conception by a sperm "X" or by a "Y", as you prefer to have a girl or a boy.
To sum up a bit, the "Y" sperm are faster than the "X", more numerous and smaller and are the ones that arrive earlier. However, they live less time and to have favorable conditions they need an alkaline environment (that the uterus has that condition). "X" sperm, on the other hand, move better in an acidic environment.
This means that if a couple wants to have a male child, the ideal would be to have relationships at the time closest to ovulation, so that when the “Y” spermatozoa arrive, the egg is waiting.
If instead they prefer to have a daughter the relations would have to be maintained about 2-4 days before ovulation (and stop there), so that the sperm "X" are waiting for the arrival of the ovule while the "Y", who die before, disappear.
Then the issue of preparing the uterus to give advantage to one or the other would come. If you want a girl you can take a look at this post, so that you have some clues on how to do it, and also, following the comments of the 2008 study, don't eat too much.
If you want children, look at this other entry to find out how to get the “Y” sperm to be found in an alkaline medium, taking into account that if you take more calories you will be more likely to get it.
