Boy or Girl? Predicting the Sex of an Unborn Baby Using Baby Gender Myths

When a woman becomes pregnant, she and the baby's father will probably spend a good deal of time speculating about the baby's gender, with some help from their well-meaning friends and family members. Most expectant parents do wonder about it, and many people will be ready to share with them the secrets of how to predict the sex of an unborn baby. There are many baby gender myths, some of which actually may sound like scientifically based methods of determining baby gender.

The heart rate of the unborn child was once considered even by medical professionals as a good way of predicting the sex of an unborn baby. As modern technology advanced, however, making data collection and analysis more feasible, large scale studies have concluded that there is no correlation between fetal heart rate and whether your baby will be born a Jack or a Jill. And so this once believed sure fire method became just another baby gender myth, moving from medically accepted to being an old wives' tale.

Other superstitions for predicting the sex of an unborn baby include observing the shape and size of the mother's breasts, the color of her urine when mixed with Drano, if a ring on a chain held suspended above the mother's belly swings back and forth or spins in a circle, and even how much weight the father gains during pregnancy.

One of the most popular baby gender myths depends on whether the expectant mother is carrying the baby high or low in her belly. While pregnant with my first child, I recall having two store clerks at a shop I frequented arguing over whether the baby I carried would be a girl or a boy. One clerk was certain the baby would be a girl since I was carrying the child high in my stomach. The other clerk insisted that my face wasn't round enough. It would be a boy, she was sure.

The simple truth is that every one of these home methods of predicting the sex of an unborn baby has a fifty percent chance to be right, and a fifty percent chance to be wrong. It will be either a boy or a girl. If you want to know which for certain, medical tests or sonograms are really the only reliable way to find out.

Terry J. DuBose, M.S., RDMS, Sex, Heart Rate and Age OBGYN.net

Gary Ventolini, M.D., Gender Related Differences in Fetal Heart Rate During First Trimester Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy