Gender swaying

[Mabelannie]

Probably a slightly controversial topic for Mumsnet but has anyone had success from gender swaying methods? Clearly even if there is nothing in it 50% of people will have the gender they attempted to “sway” towards so I get that this isn’t the most scientific of studies! I’m just interested in the theories and whether people think they might work or not.

I tried the timing of ovulation method for a girl for my last pregnancy and it resulted in an awesome little boy! We’re going to try for another when covid calms down and I’ve been researching the theories around diet and timing and I’ll try both and see what happens.

I’m interested to see whether people think there is anything in these theories or whether they are nonsense.

Before anyone mentions it, I know it’s sex not gender, it’s just “gender swaying” seems to be the terminology that’s being used generally for the topic.

Why did you try with your first child? I mean I can kind of see with a second but not a first.
I don't think it works as sex is determined by the sperm surely. Some men seem to produce more of one sex than the other.

I didn’t try with my first child. When I said I tried in my last pregnancy, I meant my most recent one - he’s my third little boy!

Would you be happy with a fourth boy?

Have you googled shettles?

Yes, I’ll be very happy with a 4th boy. I’ve kept all the little clothes in anticipation of that. But it doesn’t stop me secretly hoping for a girl.

Shettles is the method I used last time - clearly not foolproof! I’ll do it again though but was just wondering about others’ experiences and whether the diet theory works or not.

I don’t believe gender swaying works. You’ll get people disagreeing with me, probably with examples, but realistically there is a 50:50 chance that gender swaying would result in the preferred gender.

What is gender swaying?

It makes sense biologically - I can’t remember which way round it is but one type of sperm live longer so you time sex for when the type you want are going to get to the egg. So there’s a logic to it.

I know people who say it worked for them. Equally I have a friend who is one of 12 girls cos the parents kept trying for a boy, so it obv doesn’t always work :)

My mum did it in the 80s to get my brother and it worked.

She says she did all sorts of stuff, sorry not very helpful, I was a child when she told us about it. I think she ate lots of fish if that helps....

My mum did it in the 80s to get my brother and it worked

Or it could have simply been that she tossed the boy/girl coin and that time it landed boy side up?

Any individual or small scale anecdata about this/that gets you a boy/girl is totally meaningless because every pregnancy has a 50/50 chance of a boy or a girl (more or less, I'm aware that there are slight differences).

You'd have to analyse thousands if not hundreds of thousands of pregnancies using double blind studies (where neither the participants or the researchers know which people fall into which group of people) to determine if any particular method produces a statistically significant excess of either sex.

As for the OP, you have 3 boys, which has a probability of 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 = 1 in 8, ie if 8 couples had 3 DC, 1 of them would have all boys, and in this case, it's you and if you go on to have another it's still probably 50/50 whether you have a boy or a girl.

Of course there are theories that various factors sway towards either sex, but without studying at least a few tens of couples with three boys who are going on to have a 4th DC, you can't say whether the outcome is just chance or due to a 'factor'.

Have you researched much about it? My friend was going on about this when she ttc so i spent some time googling. From actual studies into the subject, Shettles has been widely debunked as myth. The whole timing around ovulation is a nonsense and something to do with him not understanding what sperm looked like at different stages of conception. When it comes to other methods - diet and PH - these are also not really going to do anything. The only things that do seem to make a difference statistically are if you have one sex already, you have a slightly increased chance of having that sex again with a second and in pretty much all studies the outcome was 51% boys and 49% girls so you are slightly more likely to have a boy. So, my conclusion from all this was that it's completely random and down to nature keeping a balance. Didn't convince my friend though, who joined a gender swaying group on Facebook and made a concerted effort to 'try for a girl'. We shall see if she has been successful in a few months!