Having a baby is a miracle that every woman on the planet who has become a mother is familiar with. Any of them is waiting for this miracle and hopes that it is her baby who will be the happiest, wise, successful when she grows up. And all future mothers think about who they bear: a boy or a girl.
“Chicken or Egg”?
According to the ancient beautiful legend of love, androgynous people lived on Earth, and they were a perfect race, combining the features of both male and female. Heavenly powers divided the androgynes into men and women. For which, it’s not so significant, but the fact remains: to this day, the halves of androgyns are looking for each other. And a man and a woman who find their soul mate in each other, become that very ideal couple, a single whole. But humanity is doomed for centuries to have offspring, which is divided into men and women, born of boys and girls.
But what do genetics say?
The legend is beautiful, but the scientific approach, genetics and its subsidiaries say very different. Man is perfect as he was created, and gender difference is not a punishment for transgressions, but a gift from above. To live and reproduce posterity like that is the purpose of all life on Earth.
Even from the school course of anatomy, we know about which sex cells are responsible for the conception to take place, about when the sex of the baby is formed in the womb, or rather, when it can already be recognized. And, it would seem, at first glance, everything is very clear: it depends on the man what gender the child will be, but maybe it’s still not so simple?
What gender do you need a baby for?
To answer the question: “What time does the baby’s gender form?”, It’s not enough to mention only that this happens at the time of conception. There are no forces that would influence whether a boy or girl is born if conception has already occurred, it is useless to try to change this and “intervene” in the process with the help of conspiracies, talismans, prayers, etc. And in what week the sex of the child is formed, in fact, it is no longer important, because the main thing is that the baby comes to a loving family.
Of course, before conception, it’s worth at least trying to do everything possible so that the desired daughter or son appears in the family, but any obstetrician-gynecologist will tell you a simple truth: “How God will give”. They do not believe in any methods and high-tech equipment.
Medical intervention in early pregnancy in the choice of gender of the child
Theoretically, the development cycle of the embryo represents the same visual scheme until 11-12 weeks - it is almost impossible to distinguish a future boy from a girl. There is a very expensive way to do this in the very early stages of embryo growth. But this is not about the traditional method of conception, but about in vitro fertilization, when the eggs and sperm grown in the mother’s body, formed in the father’s body, are connected microsurgically outside the mother’s body. And then, when analyzing the amniotic fluid of the embryo (which, in general, violates the protective shell of the embryo, and there is a risk of harming it, although it is small), the sex of the child is determined and a suitable embryo is planted in the womb of the mother. In some countries, this method is practiced, and in the event of an error, pregnancy is terminated, and in others, such methods are prohibited by law due to the unethical and immoral nature of aborting innocent embryos that did not become children due to a permissible statistical medical error.
The most accurate answer will be given by an ultrasound study.
An ultrasound examines when a child’s gender is formed, and quite accurately, already at 12 weeks. Of course, it happens that the uziologist is mistaken, but the professionalism of a doctor rarely fails. True, it is impossible to recognize sex until 11 weeks (due to physiological factors) and in the last stages of pregnancy (due to the fact that the fetus is already large and there is simply not enough space to choose the right angle). Therefore, if you still want to buy a dowry for a future baby of non-neutral colors, an ultrasound scan will help you make the right choice.
How does conception occur?
Each cell of the maternal and paternal organism contains 46 chromosomes in pairs (23 pairs). Autosomes, which are represented in the amount of 22 pairs, are responsible for the genetic set that is transmitted from parent to child. And only a single pair - heterosomes - actually determines the gender of the future person.
Female cells in no way affect the formation of sex in the embryo. Her sex chromosomes are the same, they are designated by the XX code, while male sex chromosomes have two different chromosomes in the XY chromosome pair. When connected, two cells form variants of compounds XX or XY, that is, literally this means that one of the female chromosomes X connects to one of the male chromosomes Y or X, and the sex of the unborn child is formed when the cells merge, that is, at the time of conception. And no other way.
What week is the gender of the baby formed?
Despite the fact that the embryo does not actually have gender differences up to 10 weeks (information on how long the baby's sex is physiologically formed is rather blurred, there are data from 10 weeks to 16 weeks of pregnancy), this does not mean at all that the embryo is up to this time asexual, and he can still become both a boy and a girl. If at the time of coitus the egg and sperm meet successfully, in one day two cells will become a single zygote, which will be divided in two at the end of the first day.
Folk techniques for determining the sex of the future baby
From ancient times, women were puzzled by the gender of which sex they had. Sometimes this was caused by curiosity and the unveiling of the secret veil over the main miracle - the miracle of creation. Sometimes this concerned the traditional attitude towards the heirs - in countries that preach Islam, such an attitude has not been forgotten today. Therefore, during the time when the sex of the child is formed in the womb, women are already puzzled by his future.
They also tried to find out the gender of future children before pregnancy (to predict it). Centuries-old practices for determining pregnancy include methods for determining the sex of a future baby by the behavior of a woman, even identifying the fact of pregnancy during a period when the woman is still hiding her. They also relied on changes in her appearance, gait, pigmentation or increased swelling. Today you can often hear that a girl in her mother’s womb makes her expectant mother less attractive than a boy. And this observation can be explained quite medically: after all, a girl needs the same hormones that serve her mother as a source of beauty.
It is often said that the sex of the child can be determined by the shape of the belly of the future mother. If the pregnancy is invisible from the back, the neat tummy does not stand out, then a boy is expected, and if roundness or sides are visible from the back, the sides begin to differ in softer lines and a smooth transition from chest to hip, there will be a girl. But in practice, this is not at all true, and even the same woman can look completely different during pregnancy, bearing children of the same gender.
And modern mothers, who know how to feel their children and mentally talk with them, trust their connection with the unborn baby and, when the baby’s sex is formed in the womb, pay attention to how they turn to him - as a son or as a daughter.
Predictions and fortune-telling about who to expect in the family
Various techniques and fortune-telling before pregnancy promise the accuracy of the result. And although everyone knows when the sex of a child is formed, the mystery of the most mysterious event in life beckons like a magnet. The technique of the pendulum suspended above the palm is simple: if the needle (ring, pendant) rotates in a circle, a girl will appear in the family, if it sways back and forth, a boy will be born.
Experts in palmistry say that the number of future children can be determined by the lines on the lateral surface of the hand, numerologists use numbers and an alphabetical table to determine the couple's unborn child, knowing the month of his conception. But do not take predictions seriously. As the popular joke says, the probability of fulfilling a prediction when a child’s gender is formed is fifty percent: either it will come true or not.
Methods for conceiving a child of a certain gender
There are methods that many trust:
• various lunar calendars for counting;
• diet for conception;
• Budyansky method, based on data tables that determine the right time for conception of a child of one gender or another;
• a blood method based on the parity of the mother at the time of conception;
• a blood test based on the principle of updating the blood of a man every four years, and a woman every three years.
But in all of them there are errors, shortcomings (for example, twin situations or the birth of heterosexual twins, triplets, etc. break these theories to pieces). The only theory that can withstand any criticism is the ovulation method.
The fact is that sperm live for several days, and the Y chromosome, which is more active and less "tenacious" in the pair, is responsible for the fertilization of the boy, and the X chromosome, which is slower, but more resilient, remains in the female genital tract until three days. Therefore, if you want to conceive a boy, conceive directly during ovulation (it lasts about a day). And if you want to conceive a girl, you should refrain from having sex just at that time, and consider the appropriate time three days before ovulation.