Dangers Lurking Behind Diet and Baby Gender Study?
There has been a lot of buzz in the news over a recent study out of the UK that has linked higher calorie intake and consumption of breakfast to an increased chance of conceiving a boy. Researchers surveyed the diet histories of 740 first time mothers who didn’t know the sex of the child they were carrying, and found that women who had sons had higher energy diets, and were more likely to have eaten a wider range and higher amount of nutrients such as potassium, calcium, and vitamins C, E and B12. They also found a strong association between eating breakfast cereals and having sons (hmm - maybe that has something to do with fortification of breakfast cereals with many of the nutrients listed above).
The differences in gender distribution between women with high a low energy diest weren’t huge, but they were significant. According to study data, 56% of the women with high energy diets had boys, as opposed to only 45% of the women with low energy diets.
When I first heard the results of this study, I chuckled, and mentioned to my husband that perhaps our son was the product of all the super value meals I ate in the car while running our two older kids around to classes and appointments. All joking aside though, the data has caused real concern among some professional groups, like the UK’s Royal College of Midwives, who worry that women will resort to unhealthy diets while trying to conceive, in an attempt to influence the gender of the child. The Midwives encourage all women to eat a healthy, balanced diet to give both mom and baby the best chance for a healthy pregnancy and delivery.
What do you think? Would you skip breakfast to increase your chances of having a baby girl?
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April 26th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Well, modifying your diet for gender selection purposes is certainly better than the current method of gender selection: infanticide. The prompt asks whether you would skip breakfast to increase your odds of having a girl, but, as female infanticide in countries like China and India indicate, it’s more likely women will binge on breakfast to keep from having girls.
April 27th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Well, technically, my question was geared towards my readers, who are predominantly from the US, Canada and the UK, in that order. I’m not aware of infanticide as a means of gender selection running rampant in any of those countries.
April 27th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Infanticide or abandonment happens quite frequently in the United States, though I assume you’re correct to think it’s not usually a means of gender selection in North America. Later term abortions could also be a way to select gender, though also extreme and probably very uncommon. As for your prompt, I think modifying your diet for gender selection purposes isn’t particularly “dangerous” though women should eat well prior to and during their pregnancies. Would I do it? Probably not. I enjoy breakfast too much!