Practice you have your heart set on getting pregnant with a girl? Or dreams of getting meaning with a boy? While having a salubrious baby is nigh certainly your top priority, information technology's also common to desire a baby of one sexual practice or the other, especially if yous've already had a babe (or two, or iii) of the opposite sex activity.

Whatever you're hoping for, there are a number of ways — some scientific, others silly — that just might give Mother Nature a nudge and increase your chancess of conceiving a male child or a girl.

Here's what yous should know about gender selection techniques — including the loftier-tech, the low-tech and the no-tech options!

Preimplantation genetic diagnosis

If you lot're getting an help from science to conceive in the kickoff place, you may exist able to pick the sex of your baby.

With preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), used in conjunction with in-vitro fertilization (IVF), doctors tin extract 1 cell from the chop-chop dividing embryo fertilized in the petri dish and examine it to determine sexual activity. But embryos of the desired sexual practice can be implanted in the female parent's uterus.

That said, using PGD to choose your child's sex is controversial (not to mention plush). This method was developed to help couples who have gone through genetic testing and know they are carriers of serious genetic disorders — and about fertility centers and medical organizations discourage it if in that location is no real medical reason to select baby's sex. (Some genetic disorders, for case, are specifically linked to sex, such equally Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), which more often than not occurs in boys.)

PGD is office of preimplantation genetic testing (PGT), which too includes something called preimplantation genetic screening (PGS). PGS counts the number of chromosomes and tests for chromosomal abnormalities.

Other fertility clinics volition let parents choose the sex of their baby if they've already had i or more children of the same sexual activity — a term chosen "family balancing."

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Sperm sorting

Sperm sorting, also known every bit the MicroSort Method, is washed using flow cytometry, in which the girl-producing sperm (X-sperm) is separated from boy-producing sperm (Y-sperm). Daughter-producing sperm contains virtually 3 percent more Dna than boys', and when stained with a special fluorescent material in the lab, appears to shine brighter.

The sperm of the desired sexual practice is either inserted into the mom-to-be'due south uterus via intrauterine insemination (IUI) or used to fertilize an egg in vitro.

Sperm sorting is less reliable than gender choice with PDG, which is well-nigh 100 percent accurate in selecting the desired sex.

The Shettles Method

Though there is no medical data any to support the efficacy of the so-called Shettles Method, some couples swear by information technology and others decide to give information technology a endeavor.

The theory backside the Shettles Method is that girl-producing sperm (called X-sperm) move more slowly but are more resilient and live longer than male person-producing sperm (aka Y-sperm), which are faster merely take shorter life spans.

What that ways, the story goes, is that couples can try having sex to excogitate two to 3 days before the woman is scheduled to ovulate. The thinking is that it might up the chances for the girl Ten-sperm to be the ones still waiting around in the fallopian tubes by the time the egg drops in a few days later.

If yous're trying for a boy, on the other hand, the theory is that having sex as shut as possible to ovulation is the ticket, since the speedy boy Y-sperm could exist more probable to achieve the egg start.

As long as yous realize that your odds of the Shettles Method working are pretty much the same fifty-50 chance you have of getting pregnant with a infant girl or a baby boy, it certainly can't injure to give it a whirl!

The Whelan Method

The Whelan Method of gender selection is based on similar theories every bit the Shettles Method, and it's equally short on medical evidence supporting its effectiveness. But if you become into information technology realizing there's admittedly no solid science behind it, in that location's no impairment in trying it out.

The Whelan Method is based on the idea that biochemical changes in a woman's body at certain times in her bicycle brand it more likely that boy Y-sperm will fertilize an egg, while at other times her biochemistry will favor girl X-sperm.

So if they're hoping for a boy, the theory says, couples can try to have sex iv to half-dozen days before ovulation. And to conceive a daughter, they can striking the sheets either two to three days before ovulation or on the day the adult female ovulates.

Bated from the lack of whatever actual data showing that the Whelan Method works, critics as well say having sexual activity four to half dozen days before ovulation is much as well far ahead of the release of the egg to go pregnant, since sperm can't survive that long (usually effectually 3 days at most).

That said, if you're the "ring gender test" type and understand the Whelan Method has near the same odds of determining whether you'll give nativity to a male child or a girl, then by all ways, have fun with it!

Gender option kits

There are a multifariousness of kits available that claim to improve babe sex selection odds. They're based on altering the conditions around the egg and sperm — by using nutritional supplements and douches — to make the vaginal tract more receptive to either the X- or Y-sperm.

Near experts consider the claims of these gender pick kits to be doubtable.

Predicting Your Baby's Gender

Diet and diet

There'south no such thing as a diet that tin boost your odds of conceiving a male child or girl, but that hasn't stopped people from speculating about it.

Some theories say that eating foods depression in sodium and loftier in calcium tin increase your chances of having a girl. Others claim that your diet should include eggs, yogurt and chocolate if you want a daughter and reddish meat, potassium-rich foods like bananas, and salty dishes if you want a male child.

Sex positions

Theories grow about whether certain sexual practice positions can assistance yous excogitate a male child or girl — just as you tin imagine, at that place's no evidence showing that, say, having sex standing upward can help you take a boy, or missionary position makes you lot more likely to have a girl. Same goes for the theories about who has an orgasm offset. Notwithstanding, there's no damage in trying!

Every bit promising — and unpromising — as some of these methods audio, continue in listen that loftier-tech gender selection techniques can exist expensive, invasive and controversial. As for the depression-tech means of conceiving, they haven't been shown to exist whatever more successful than just letting nature have its class.

Heidi Murkoff