Eat More Cereals, Bananas To Have A Baby Boy

Having a baby boy is highly-prized in several communities and as a result, many women will do all it takes to ensure they give birth to a boy. There is however a scientific support to age-old superstitions about women being able to give birth to boys if they consume large amounts of foods as bananas and cereals. Report by Sade Oguntola.

THERE are a variety of theories about influencing the sex of a baby. The latest study takes this a step further, suggesting that women can influence the gender of their babies with what they eat before they conceive and thus increase their chances of having a baby of their choice. In a new research that lends scientific support to age old superstitions about pregnancy, it is said women are more likely to give birth to boys if they consume large amounts of foods such as bananas and cereals while those on restricted diets are more likely to produce girls.

The scientists at Britain’s Oxford and Exeter Universities studied eating habits of 740 women during their first-time pregnancies. They were healthy women, who were about 14 weeks pregnant with their first babies, without any medical conditions and of healthy weights. In this group of women that kept diaries of their seven-day food intake during early pregnancy, it was found that of the women eating cereals daily, 59 per cent had boys, compared with only 43 per cent who bore boys in the group. As well as consuming more food, women who had sons were more likely to have eaten a higher quantity and wider range of nutrients, including potassium, calcium and vitamins C, E and B12 The first scientific study that proved that the gender of a baby can be influenced without the need for expensive medical treatment, said “A higher calorie intake prior to conception can increase the chances of having a son, from 10 to 11 boys in every 20 births”, according to the study published in the Proceeding of the Royal Society B.

The discovery that points to a natural way for women to boost their chances of giving birth to boys, if only slightly, however, did not find any other relationship between baby’s sex and mother’s smoking history, folic acid use, age, drinking coffee, weight, height, BMI or mother’s educational level. Dr Fiona Mathews, a specialist in mammalian biology at Exeter University and the lead author of the study, said this in a way was able to confirm “the old wives’ tale that eating bananas and so having a high potassium intake was associated with having a boy, as was with high sodium intake. But the old wives taking a lot of milk to have a girl doesn’t seem to hold. In fact, more calcium intake meant they were again more likely to have a boy.” “It does not seem to matter whether you get most of your energy from carbohydrates or fat, it’s about the total amount of calories consumed,” she said. Mean-while, the expert believes that this is a simple technique where by a mother seems to be able to influence the survival of either the sperm or the fertilised egg in its very early stage, probably before it has even implanted in the womb.

While it might be possible for a woman to boost the effect by substantially changing her diet, scientists warned that consuming high levels of salt or dramatically altering levels of other nutrients could be harmful. “If you’re looking for a boy, then eat cereal(s) at breakfast every day and within safe limits, have a reasonable intake of sodium, potassium and calcium, plus a good intake of protein in a sensible option. It’s the converse of that if you’re hoping for a girl, but again, only within safe limits,” Mathews said. Because sex is actually determined by the sperm, researchers are sure of how a woman’s diet influences the gender of her baby. It is thought that diet could affect the levels of acidity in her body at conception—and that certain conditions could favour the sperm carrying male or female chromosomes. In addition, he said that in this day and age that many young women go without breakfast, this might account for why the proportion of boys that were born was falling. According to him, “This research may help to explain why in developed countries, where many young women choose to have low calorie diets, the proportion of boys born is falling.”

A link between food availability and gender has been identified previously in animals. Skipping breakfast had the effect of lowering glucose levels, which the body, in a hangover from mankind’s hunter gatherer roots, may interpret as being a sign that food is in short supply. The finding makes evolutionary sense and mirrors a similar effect seen in other animals. Females are more likely to be born when food is scarce, since they are more likely to produce at least some babies. More sons are produced when a mother has plentiful resources or is high-ranking, reflecting how boys are more taxing to bring up. Professor Stuart West of Edinburgh University said women should be extremely cautious about using diet(s) to influence the sex of their offspring(s), stating that similar studies in animals showed huge variations in the effect and warned that changing diet(s) could have other health implications on mothers and children. Meanwhile, previous research suggesting the effect of diet(s) said potassium, found in meat and bananas, helps V-chromosome sperm thrive, while the magnesium in nuts, soya beans and green leafy vegetables is good for X-chromosome sperm.

Profeesor Tola Atinmo, Head of Nutrition Department, raised a word of caution on diet(s) influencing the sex of a baby. According to him, eating a food such as banana that is high in potassium may only increase a woman’s chances of conception and not in ensuring that she has a male child. According to him, what is known in Nigeria is that the consumption of foods like dried okra and species of yam tends to increase the level of twinning in some communities. But this has nothing to do with the sex of the baby in any way whatsoever. However, some are of a different opinion on foods helping to improve the chances of having a male child. One of such people is Mr. Steve Adewole, a journalist with a national newspaper in Nigeria. “I am a living example of a person that believes that diet has a role to play in the sex of a baby. For instances, the high level of bananas I ate before my wife had a baby boy, I think, helped. You may not appreciate this but I know eating right is important both for the man and the woman to ensure they not only have a healthy child but also one with the desired sex,” he stated.