A woman can determine her child’s sex
Apr 30, 2008
A woman’s diet around the time of conception may influence the gender of her baby, research suggests. The study suggests a high calorie diet at this time — and regular breakfasts — might increase the odds of a boy.
Grain of science
A woman’s diet around the time of conception may influence the gender of her baby, research suggests. The study suggests a high calorie diet at this time — and regular breakfasts — might increase the odds of a boy.
Researchers say the modern trend to opt for low calorie diets might explain why the proportion of boys is falling in developed countries.
Over the last 40 years there has been a small but consistent decline, of about one per 1,000 births annually, in the proportion of boys being born in developed countries.
The study, by the Universities of Exeter and Oxford, which appears in the Royal Society journal Biological Sciences, focused on 740 first-time pregnant mothers in the UK.
They found women who had sons were also more likely to have eaten a higher quantity and wider range of nutrients, including potassium, calcium and vitamins C, E, B12 and breakfast cereals.
Scientists already know that in many animals, more males are produced when a mother has plentiful resources. The phenomenon has been most extensively studied in invertebrates, but is also seen in horses and cows .
It is known from IVF research that high levels of glucose encourage the growth and development of male embryos while inhibiting female embryos.
In humans, skipping breakfast depresses glucose levels and may be interpreted by the body as indicating poor environmental conditions and low food availability.
Dr Allan Pacey, an expert in fertility at the University of Sheffield, said there was good evidence that nature had subtle ways of changing the sex ratio of a population in response to a variety of things.
However, he said: “I would urge women to not to start starving themselves in order to try influence the sex of their baby. It has been observed in some animal studies that even small changes in female diet can affect the life long health of the offspring, so it is important that the mother has propernutrition at the time of conception and throughout her pregnancy.â€
A woman’s diet around the time of conception may influence the gender of her baby, research suggests. The study suggests a high calorie diet at this time — and regular breakfasts — might increase the odds of a boy.
Researchers say the modern trend to opt for low calorie diets might explain why the proportion of boys is falling in developed countries.
Over the last 40 years there has been a small but consistent decline, of about one per 1,000 births annually, in the proportion of boys being born in developed countries.
The study, by the Universities of Exeter and Oxford, which appears in the Royal Society journal Biological Sciences, focused on 740 first-time pregnant mothers in the UK.
They found women who had sons were also more likely to have eaten a higher quantity and wider range of nutrients, including potassium, calcium and vitamins C, E, B12 and breakfast cereals.
Scientists already know that in many animals, more males are produced when a mother has plentiful resources. The phenomenon has been most extensively studied in invertebrates, but is also seen in horses and cows .
It is known from IVF research that high levels of glucose encourage the growth and development of male embryos while inhibiting female embryos.
In humans, skipping breakfast depresses glucose levels and may be interpreted by the body as indicating poor environmental conditions and low food availability.
Dr Allan Pacey, an expert in fertility at the University of Sheffield, said there was good evidence that nature had subtle ways of changing the sex ratio of a population in response to a variety of things.
However, he said: “I would urge women to not to start starving themselves in order to try influence the sex of their baby. It has been observed in some animal studies that even small changes in female diet can affect the life long health of the offspring, so it is important that the mother has propernutrition at the time of conception and throughout her pregnancy.â€