Time left between having babies.....increase chance of same sex

TeddyRO1

Is there any truth to the notion that if you fall pregnant within yr or two years of having last baby that they will be of same sex?

Are the chances higher or does stastics show that it is?

Squiggler

Old wives tale I think. My brother and I were born within 15 months of each other.

clappyhappy

Not true, a friend of mine has 3 kids under 4 and a half, boy, girl, boy. Another girl I know locally, had twin boys, became pregnant (unplanned) within a couple of months of them being born, had twin girls. She had 4 kids under 2 at one stage!!!!!

Mink

clappyhappy wrote: »

Another girl I know locally, had twin boys, became pregnant (unplanned) within a couple of months of them being born, had twin girls. She had 4 kids under 2 at one stage!!!!!

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

Back on topic... old wives tales

seamus

Old wives tale.

There is no natural method whatsoever for selecting sex or predicting the sex of a child conceived naturally. It's an actual 50:50 chance.

Edit: actually that's a little bit simplistic. Once in utero, there's a slightly greater chance that it's a boy than a girl because more boys than girls are born. So if you are asked to make a bet, always go with boy. The odds are in your favour.

TwoMums2Be

I believe I read (can't remember where) that male sperm swims faster than female sperm but there is no natural way to control what you get

seamus

TwoMums2Be wrote: »

I believe I read (can't remember where) that male sperm swims faster than female sperm but there is no natural way to control what you get

A doctor in the 1970's proposed that male sperm swam faster than female sperm so it reached the fallopian tube earlier but also died earlier.
He used this theory to devise a form of timed method where you have sex closer to ovulation if you wanted a boy (so more male sperm get there first), and further from ovulation if you wanted a girl (so more female sperm would be waiting for the egg when it arrived).

However, he was never able to demonstrate that this theory panned out in the real world and the timed method is classed as hokum.

Interestingly though the concept that male sperm may swim faster isn't without merit. Male sperm are ever so slightly lighter than female sperm because they contain a tiny bit less DNA. This fact is used in a method which allows a sperm sample to be separated such that you have two samples, each containing either a higher percentage of females or a higher percentage of males. One of the samples is then used in artificial insemination in order to yield a higher chance of conceiving a boy (or girl).

pushkii

I think i heard too that it depends on the season .that more females are born in the winter months because they are 'hardier'
Also a friend told me once that more aggressive alpha male types tend to procreate more females as it means they still get to be the alpha male, less competition. Don't really know tho :-)

emmabrighton

pushkii wrote: »

I think i heard too that it depends on the season .that more females are born in the winter months because they are 'hardier'
Also a friend told me once that more aggressive alpha male types tend to procreate more females as it means they still get to be the alpha male, less competition. Don't really know tho :-)

Then why am I having a boy??? :P

Meekly hoping my OH doesn't venture onto this forum :P

Squiggler

The only winter baby in our family is one of my brothers. All those old wives tales are fun, but none of them should be taken seriously. There are a whole bunch of them advising everything from eating certain foods pre conception to conceiving at certain times of day.

I think at the end of the day you just get what you're given.

Princessa

seamus wrote: »

Once in utero, there's a slightly greater chance that it's a boy than a girl because more boys than girls are born. So if you are asked to make a bet, always go with boy. The odds are in your favour.

I never knew that there was slighly a greater chance of having a boy then a girl. I knew the theory about the male sperm swimming faster but the female sperm lasting up to 72hour so i just assumed it evened out and it was a 50:50 chance really...

cyning

And if you suffer with severe morning sickness you are more likely to have a girl

TwoMums2Be

Pushki us July mammies are really making a mockery of that theory

Enkidu

All sperm are identical except in that some carry the slightly less massive Y chromosome as opposed to an additional X-chromosome. This allows them to be separated via technology that can differentiate such small mass differences.

However it leads to no real effect in terms of getting pregnant naturally. A woman is 1.06 times more likely to have a male child than a female child when young and this drops to 1.04/1.03 times more likely when she is older.

That's it really.

seamus

Princessa wrote: »

I never knew that there was slighly a greater chance of having a boy then a girl.

The hows and whys aren't really that well known.

It's been identified as a statistical fact that more boys are born than girls (only fractionally more though), but it hasn't really been resolved against the fact that sperm is 50:50 male:female. It's very well studied and theorised but there are lots of competing theories and confounding factors.
Some guesses are that the "faster male" theory may be correct, or that female sperm are more likely to be inviable, or that a female egg is more likely to be spontaneously aborted by the body due to defects.

Although we don't know specifically why it's there, we do know that it's an evolved tendency, as having slightly more males than females has proven to be advantageous for our species as a whole.

Worldwide the ratio of males-to-females is actually somewhat skewed due to sex-selection abortions and infanticide in countries where having a girl is seen as less preferable

Although the ratio worldwide is something like 106:100 (i.e. 106 males for every 100 females), at birth the actual difference is 101:100 or less.

Mink

Yes, it's true unfortunately. In China there are approx 116 boys born to every 100 girls. Gender scanning has been made illegal in China (or at least parts) to help stop people aborting girls. The scans still happen behind closed doors for some extra yen though.

As people there are only really allowed to have 1 child, they unfortunately prefer to have a boy, I guess to carry on the family name. It's very sad.

TwoMums2Be

Mink wrote: »

Yes, it's true unfortunately. In China there are approx 116 boys born to every 100 girls. Gender scanning has been made illegal in China (or at least parts) to help stop people aborting girls. The scans still happen behind closed doors for some extra yen though.

As people there are only really allowed to have 1 child, they unfortunately prefer to have a boy, I guess to carry on the family name. It's very sad.

It is a dreadful situation Mink & the desire for a boy is fuelled by the tradition that the male brings his parents into his family home when they are unable to care for themselves...so if you want to be looked after in old age you have to have a male child!