Strollerderby : gender selection

Mom Of 8 Boys To Try For Girl . . . One . . . More . . . Time

Amy S.F. Lutz — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 12:24:00 GMT

I have to admit, I was really happy when, after my first child was a boy, my second was a girl. Then, when I got pregnant a third, then a fourth time, I wasn't rooting for a particular sex.

So I'm sympathetic to the plight of Englishwoman Wendy Bowen, who, in her desperate desire for a daughter, is determined to go for a ninth child after giving birth to eight boys.

I'm sympathetic, but I still think she's crazy. It's not like Bowen even wanted a large family. But she lost a female fetus at eight months during her first pregnancy, and, as she told the British media, "We've tried for girls ever since."

Look, girls are great. But how far would you go to have one, when you already have an increasing number of healthy sons at home? Boys are pretty great, too. And the costs of this quest are not insignificant. There's the financial burden of supporting such a large brood: Bowen works part-time cleaning houses to help supplement her husband Peter's income as a tree surgeon. Then there's the health risks to both mom and baby of pregnancy at age 41. And I can only imagine how this obsession has affected the self-esteem of Bowen's sons, who must be reminded with each new pregnancy that they aren't what their mother really wanted.

Daily Mail Photo

Gender Test Kits Get It Wrong -- Often

Madeline Holler — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:32:00 GMT

Don't you hate it when you spend upwards of $300 on an unproven at-home genetics testing kit that you ordered online to find out whether you were pregnant with a boy or a girl and then you made lots of decisions based on the results and -- crap! -- the damn thing gave you the wrong results?

If I had a nickel everytime that happened, I'd be as rich as the people who sell these things. Now, if you fell for the marketing and spent your future offspring's college starter fund, you're not alone.

Tons of people are laying out the cash, smearing drops of their blood onto a small piece of paper and then sending the paper in for results. The kits, unregulated by the FDA since they make no claims related to health, only the sex of the fetus. Many promise a 97 percent accuracy and claim they can make the determination as early as eight weeks into a pregnancy. But some are questioning these claims and have joined together to sue one company in particular, Acu-Gen and its owner, Chang-ning Wang.

One misinformed couple used the sex determination kit to see if their third child would be yet another girl. The test said "it's a boy," the doctor said, "it's a girl!" That couple isn't suing, and while they love their third daughter as much as the first, the underlying subtext is that had the test said "girl," they would have aborted the fetus. They were surprised in the birthing room because ultrasound techs where they live are prohibited from determining fetuses sex precisely to avoid sex selective actions.

Other versions of these kits claim to mine DNA for information on ethnic heritage, lost relatives and best weight loss plans or sports for your type. Best weight loss? Don't tell me, based on my genetics it would be best to decrease caloric intake and increase exercise ... this stuff is genius!

Did you use one of these kits? Did you get accurate results? Or is this just the 21st Century version of dangling wedding bands over a pregnant belly?

Study: Pregnant Smokers Have Girls, Not Boys

Karen Murphy — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 18:08:00 GMT

A crude but fairly-effective low-tech method of gender-selection seems to have been stumbled upon by British researchers: a new study of 9000 pregnancies in Liverpool, England* shows that moms-to-be who smoke are one-third less likely to have male children than moms who don't smoke. If the dad-to-be smokes, the likelihood drops to almost one-half (this is taking into account other factors such as health and age).

The mother doesn't even have to be a smoker at all, as even second-hand smoke was found to have an effect upon the resulting baby's gender. This is all pretty significant when you consider that 52%, or slightly more than half (I know you know this but I'm saying it for my own math-deprived brain), of babies born in Western countries are male. What would the balance be like if no one smoked at all, I wonder? (or if everyone did?)

Researchers still haven't a clue as to the cause of this phenomenon, but they hypothesize that it ~~has something to do with smoking~~ has to do with the effect of nicotine upon the Y-chromosome (which determines gender), and also something having to do with the effects upon the mother (it's known, for instance, that smoking reduces estrogen and thins the cervix, as well as causes other bad stuff, but how this results in gender changes they haven't a clue).

So, if you want a girl, smoke 'em if you've got 'em!

*damn, I couldn't work the term "Liverpudlian" into this article.

Posh and Becks Trying For A Girl (Trying Everything, In Fact!)

Patti — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 22:14:00 GMT

Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham has reportedly put herself on a fairly strict diet in anticipation of conceiving a fourth child with husband David Beckham, who has also embarked on a restrictive diet in an attempt to try and control the future baby's gender. Already the parents of three sons (Brooklyn, 7, Romeo, 4, and 18-month-old Cruz), the Beckhams are hoping for a girl this time around.

There seems to be little consensus on whether diet during the pre-conception period can affect gender, but there's a school of thought that a diet heavy in dairy and beans will create a hospitable environment for the conception of a girl while a diet rich in meat and vegetables will be more likely to result in a boy--the Beckhams, however, seem to be erring on the side of vegetables.

People also swear by the Shettles method for gender selection--I have several friends who are convinced it worked for them. But I think there's only one sure-fire way to guarantee you'll conceive a girl after having had three sons, and that's to hang on to every single blue onesie and fire-truck-emblazoned pair of pajamas. If Victoria and David have already gotten rid of all their boy-centric baby clothes, they're screwed.