How to choose the sex of your baby

Boy or Girl, What are the odds?

If you are interested in choosing the sex of your baby, do yourself a favor...Grab a cup of your favorite drink and read every word of this right now while it's still possible for you to drastically tip the odds in your favor. This is information collected from many sources. This is not medical advice. I say this because there's no enough medical evidence that any of them actually work or are accurate as claimed by the inventors!

Dr. Shettles' studies

According to him x-perms which are bigger stronger but slower, 'deliver' girls, while y-sperms which are smaller, weaker but faster determine the male sex. Many methods and techniques are based on this fact.

Therefore men who want to have boys need to wear boxers to increase overall fertility -- the testicles need cooler temperatures for sperms to survive, and the Y-sperms, since they are weaker, will be helped more than the X-sperms by this method. Therefore fathers who usually wear briefs or other tight underwear have a higher chance of having girls.

Douching is also thought to affect sperms. Women who want girls are advised to use Acidic factor like white vinegar at 2-2.5 days before ovulation since it will kill the weaker y-sperms first, leaving a greater quantity of x-sperms available to fertilize the egg. To get a boy use alkaline for douching i.e taking a baking soda douche prior to intercourse.

The position and penetration during sex is also a factor. To increase chances of conceiving a girl, shallow penetration and missionary style or face to face is advised. For conceiving a boy deep penetration and vaginal penetration from rear(doggy style) is recommended. This is thought to place the sperm near the egg and give those aggressive boy sperms a head start.

Men with a low sperm count have a higher probability of having girls than men with a high sperm count. Therefore to conceive a boy men should, avoid sex for a week before ovulation and then only have sex once on ovulation day, to keep the sperm count high. To conceive a girl, have sex frequently to lower your partner's sperm count, and so increase the chances of the female sperm reaching the egg first

The most important aspect of all is timing of intercourse during the monthly cycle. If you have sex 3 days or more before ovulation, the better your chances to conceive a girl, because the weaker y-sperms tend to die sooner and the x-sperms will be available in greater quantity whenever the egg is released. The closer to ovulation you have sex, the better the chances to have a boy, because the y-sperms are faster and tend to get to the egg first.

Women seeking to conceive boys are also advised to reach orgasm before their partner, as this releases an alkaline fluid, thought to be more male-sperm friendly than the vagina's natural acidity. The opposite applies if a girl is sought.

Diet

Some people suggest that gender diet can change pH level in your body, and therefore, it can change the polarity of the egg. The resulted charge will attract one gender more than the other by 80%.

To conceive a girl, take more magnesium, calcium and less potassium and vise versa if boy is wished. Foods rich in magnesium and calcium are; eggs, milk or milk products, no salt in food, salt-free bread, ice cream, tangerines, grapefruit, apples, pineapple, pears, cucumbers, radish, lettuce, cabbages, carrots and turnips.

Foods rich in potassium include; salted meat products, sausages, fish (dried and salted fish particularly recommended), rice, potatoes, beans, peaches, apricots, bananas, cherries, grapes, oranges, melons, sprouts, celery, tomatoes, and sweet corn.

What other methods exist?

• Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis

This method is 100% effective, though it is very expensive and currently it is only allowed for medical reasons. PGD is strictly regulated and can only be used to help couples or individuals with serious genetic disorders, such as haemophilia and cystic fibrosis. The technique reduces the risk of having a child suffering from the same condition. The gender of the embryo is used to select embryos for implantation where an inherited disease follows the male or female line, such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which only affects males.

During an in-vitro fertilisation cycle, eggs are fertilised with sperm in a petri dish. A single cell or cells are later removed from each of the resulting 3- to 5-day-old embryos and tested for gender.

• Ericsson Albumin Method

A sperm-sorting technique that aims to separate faster-swimming boy-producing sperm from slower-swimming girl-producing sperm. The separation is achieved by pouring a sperm sample on a gluey layer of fluid in a test tube. All the sperm naturally swim down, but the boys tend to swim faster and reach the bottom earlier. Once the fast and slow swimmers are separated, sperms of the desired gender are inserted directly into your uterus via artificial insemination.

The technique is 78 to 85 per cent effective when it comes to choosing boys and 73 to 75 per cent effective for girl babies.

• MicroSort:

What do experts say? My conclusion

High-tech sex-selection methods have stirred hot debate across the board, but Low-tech sex selection has not sparked the same controversy, probably because these methods are far from foolproof and the assumption is that couples practicing them are investing less, both financially and emotionally, in their success.

The worries of many is that, widespread use of sex selection methods could skew the sex ratio of the general population. Apart from that many scientist today, based on evidence based medicine, are of the view that the natural process should not be tampered with unless a pathology or malformation is suspected. Should we leave gender selection to nature? leave your comments below