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Are You Having A Baby Boy Or A Baby Girl?
During the second half of my wife's first pregnancy, our mothers and aunts told us that we were definitely going to have a baby boy.
How did they know with such certainty?
Because Margaret gained the bulk of her pregnancy weight at the front of her abdomen.
According to widely accepted folklore, if weight gain during pregnancy occurs mainly at the front of the abdomen, one can expect a baby boy. If weight gain occurs more evenly throughout a woman's body and face, it's most likely a girl.
Do these beliefs stand up to scientific scrutiny?
According to a study conducted at Johns Hopkins University in 1999, the shape of a pregnant woman's abdomen is not a reliable predictor of a baby's gender. Researchers came to this conclusion by tracking the pregnancies of 104 women who did not know the sex of their babies.
Two unexpected findings were as follows:
- Women with 12 or more years of formal education correctly predicted the gender of their babies approximately 70 percent of the time. Those with less formal education were right about the sex of their babies only 43 percent of the time.
- Predictions that were based on dreams and feelings were more accurate than those based on each woman's pattern of weight gain.
Just as an aside, some of our readers may find it funny to know that Korean folklore says that dreams about snakes represent a baby boy, while dreams about any types of buttons or flowers equate to a baby girl.
In the end, as most of us believe, what matters most is that mother and baby are healthy.
To read dietary and lifestyle suggestions for women looking to experience a healthy pregnancy, view the following article: