Pregnant woman's diet affects gender of her baby

Exeter, United Kingdom, January 17: Eating more potassium rich diet and not skipping breakfast might raise the odds of having a baby boy? Well, that is what the latest study seems to unveil.

The new study by biologists claims that the answer to the gender of babies lies in the diet of the pregnant mother. The study reveals that a pregnant woman’s diet and her overall health, along with the environmental factors surrounding her, greatly influence the baby’s sex.

The recent study titled “You are what your mother eats” is published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. It reiterates the fact that women’s diet might hold a vital clue to the sex of their babies. Findings of the study based on 740 pregnant women reveal that women who consumed lots of breakfast cereal, salt and potassium had more chances of giving birth to baby boys.

The controversial study has evoked mixed response from statisticians and fertility experts alike. Stanley Young, a statistician working for the National Institute of Statistical Sciences in Research Triangle Park, N. C. sounded skeptical about the findings of the study. “The female has nothing to do with the gender of the child,” he said.

Although, earlier theories state that sex is genetically determined by whether sperm from the father supplies an X or Y chromosome, the latest study suggests that a mother’s food intake might influence the development of baby’s sex.

Being unconvinced after reading the paper, Young asked the editors at the Proceedings of the Royal Society B to see the data from the study. “The biological reasoning didn't seem reasonable to me. And I looked at the statistics and it was complicated, but it didn't look reasonable either,” he said. “It's hard to believe that woman can increase the likelihood of having a baby boy by eating more bananas, cereal or salt,” Young stated.

Taking Young’s skepticism in good taste and being fully confident of the statistical methods used in the study, Fiona Mathews, DPhil, lecturer in mammalian biology at the University of Exeter, England, and the lead author of the study said, “It's part of the scientific process. The women who ate more (calories), including women who were more likely to eat cereal in the morning, were more likely to bear boys than girls,” informed Mathews. “And it's highly unlikely that this occurred by chance.”

The findings of the study are based on first-time pregnant women who did not know the sex of their fetus. Taking a clue from this study, many pregnant women obsessed in choosing the sex of their children might go for diet rich in potassium, calcium and vitamins and thriving on breakfast cereals.

However, Dr. Fiona Mathews cautions all such women not to use the results as a formula if they want a boy and starve themselves if they want a girl, as she feels these are just correlations and do not have any direct link.

There is a need for much more research to arrive at any conclusions. “The exciting thing is to try to work out which factors are the crucial ones and how they're working to influence the gender of the infant,” she re-affirmed.