I couldn’t find any science to support this, but there is some evidence from a Boston hospital study that found expectant mothers have bigger appetites on average if they are carrying a boy rather than a girl. One friend told me that my aversion to lettuce means I’m going to have a boy. Old wives’ tale 3: Weird food cravings = a boy The only time when a difference has been detected is during labour itself, when female babies seem to have faster heart rates than males the reason is unknown. The average heart rate of girls was 151.7 bpm, while for boys it was 154.9 bpm – not a large enough difference to be statistically significant ( Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy, DOI: 10.1159/000089065). In one study, researchers used ultrasound to measure fetal heart rate in 477 fetuses before 14 weeks of pregnancy. And according to published studies there seems to be little difference between boys and girls, at least during early pregnancy. However, fetal heart rate tends to decrease as pregnancy progresses, from 170 to 200 bpm at 8 to 10 weeks down to 120 to 160 bpm by mid-pregnancy. I’ve had the pleasure of listening to my baby’s heart rate twice in the past fortnight, and the last time it was 130 bpm – so I should be expecting a boy. Old wives’ tale 2: Fetal heart rate predicts the baby’s sexĪccording to this rule – it’s been around for 30 years, so I class it as an old wives’ tale – if your fetus’s heart rate is above 140 beats per minute (bpm) you’re expecting a girl, and if it’s below you’re expecting a boy. Within the pregnancy sickness group, 40 per cent of women who lived alone had boys, against 45 per cent of women who lived with their partner ( The Lancet, DOI: 10.1016/s0140-6736(05)74029-0).
Among women with severe sickness, 46.5 per cent gave birth to boys, compared with 51 per cent of other women.
In a separate study, he also found that women with severe pregnancy sickness were more likely to give birth to girls the correlation was even stronger in single mothers. They blame higher levels of the pregnancy hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) in women carrying girls.Ĭuriously, Henrik Toft Sørensen of Aarhus and Aalborg University Hospitals in Denmark wrote to The Lancet the following month claiming that the sex ratio also seemed to be influenced by marital status, with fewer boys born to single mothers. In 1999, researchers analysed records of 8186 women admitted to hospital in Sweden with pregnancy sickness and found that 44.3 per cent of them gave birth to boys, versus 51.4 per cent of the general population ( The Lancet, DOI: 10.1016/s0140-6736(99)04239-7). The opposite is true, in fact: mothers with severe pregnancy sickness are more likely to have a girl. I didn’t suffer morning sickness, so according to this rule, I should be expecting a girl. Old wives’ tale 1: Bad morning sickness means you’re having a boy
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