After the good news that the family will soon be replenished, the second most important issue for future parents is the sex of the unborn child. It is not surprising that future parents (and especially mothers) want to know as soon as possible whether they are carrying a girl or a boy. An irrepressible curiosity in this matter has at all times been characteristic of women. When and how you can find out the sex of a child in the early stages, this article will tell you.
Gender origin
Some women, after two strips on the test, on the advice of friends or the all-knowing Internet, begin to eat meat or dairy products intensively, believing that it is a particular diet that will help the formation of one or another sex in an unborn child. In fact, everything has already been decided, and no diets can affect gender. Everything is decided long before a woman finds out about her pregnancy - right at the moment of conception.
The female reproductive cell is capable of fertilizing only one of tens of millions of spermatozoa. And it could be a sperm with an XX genetic set or a gamete with an XY set. An ovum cannot have variants of the genetic set in a pair of sex chromosomes, it always contains only set XX. This means only one thing - the gender of the child depends entirely on the man, or rather, on the type of sperm that is the first to merge with the female gamete.
After the sperm passes through the egg shell, it becomes impenetrable for other spermatozoa, and the process of DNA exchange begins inside the oocyte. Cell nuclei are represented by 23 pairs of chromosomes.
Thus, the unborn child has its own genome within an hour after the fateful intercourse. The zygote has 46 chromosomes, which determine the sex and color of hair, eyes, height, and even talents, abilities and hereditary diseases of the future member of society.
What gender it will be is determined by 21 pairs of chromosomes. If fertilization was performed by a sperm with a set of XX, then a girl will be born, if the egg has merged with a gamete with a set of XY, then an heir, a son, will be born.
Today, the method of scheduling sex by ovulation is especially popular. It is argued that intercourse before ovulation increases the likelihood of having a daughter, and on the day of ovulation and within 24 hours after her - a boy. The method is called scientific, but in fact there is little scientific in it. - only that a man's sperm really have a different genetic makeup in 21 pairs. Proponents of the method explain their position by the fact that XX spermatozoa are slow, but tenacious, and therefore they can wait for the release of the oocyte on the day of ovulation without any problems and immediately fertilize the female reproductive cell
XY spermatozoa are credited with a higher speed but a shorter lifespan, and therefore they are considered to have a better chance of reaching an egg if intercourse takes place immediately during ovulation.
In fact, with the development of reproductive science, microscopic examinations of different types of spermatozoa did not reveal any differences in speed, morphology, viability between gametes XX and XY. This means only one thing - no matter how you try to plan the gender, the probability of conceiving both a boy and a girl, and even heterosexual twins on any day of the fertile period is exactly the same.
Now that we know that the gender has already been decided, and at the time of testing a woman for pregnancy, the embryo already has a gender, it's time to talk about the timing of the genitals and differences.
The first germ cells in children of both sexes are laid already at 5-6 weeks of gestation. And immediately after that, the sex glands begin to form. Both the boys 'testicles and the girls' ovaries are initially located in the abdominal cavity. From 8-9 weeks, the testes of future representatives of the stronger sex begin to secrete their own male hormone - testosterone.
The external genital organs are represented by the same genital tubercles - they do not differ in boys and girls, and only after the 9th week of pregnancy in male fetuses the formation of the penis from the tubercle begins, and in the girl the tubercle becomes the basis of the clitoris and labia. Genital formation process ends by 13-14 weeks.
It is from this period that you can find out with high accuracy the sex of the baby by ultrasound. But it is unbearable for most women to endure until the end of the first trimester. They are looking for alternative ways to determine gender.
Alternative Methods - Validity and Principles
What women do not do to find out whether a boy or a girl grows in the womb! Here are the most popular ways women use to find the answer to the important question of what sex determination might be in early pregnancy.
Chinese table
Rumor attributes an ancient origin to this method, it is argued that the Chinese used it literally until recently. Until the ban on the birth of a second child was lifted, it was important for many to give birth to a boy, because the son could continue the surname, the family business. This led to a certain demographic imbalance - in the Middle Kingdom today there is a terrible shortage of women with an excess of men.
The residents of China and historians themselves do not confirm that the Celestial Empire has anything to do with this table. It uses months according to the Gregorian calendar, and in the XIV century, to which the table is attributed, the Chinese did not know such a calendar, using the lunar and solar. The accuracy of the table does not exceed 50-60%, which is comparable to ordinary fortune-telling - either a boy (50%) or a girl (50%). Therefore, you need to treat the method lightly and naturally - as fun entertainment.
All you need to know is the month of conception and the age of the mother at the time of conception. In the column "age" find the desired value, correlate it with the month of conception of the baby and get either "M" (boy) or "D" (girl).
There are also calculator calendars that can quickly calculate the required field, just enter the mother's age and the month of conception.
By renewing blood
Calculating your baby's gender this way will require concentration and math skills. It is based on the hypothesis of blood renewal, implying that for a woman this happens once every 3 years, and for a man - once every 4 years. If there was an operation, blood transfusion, then everything is reset, and this event is considered the date of the last update.
The child, according to the hypothesis, should inherit the gender of the parent who had the last update. Doctors deny the blood renewal in question. Speaking about renewal, experts mean hematopoiesis, which takes place in the bone marrow constantly, and not every few years. Hematopoiesis has nothing to do with reproductive function and cannot even theoretically participate in matters of conception and sex.
Proof of this is the renewal of blood (hematopoiesis) in infertile and elderly people - they are unable to reproduce, and the production of blood cells continues until death.
By fetal heartbeat
The heart in a child's body begins to function one of the first, and already at an ultrasound scan at 6-7 weeks, the doctor will confidently name the baby's heart rate. It is this indicator that many expectant mothers try to interpret as an indicator of the child's gender. Kind advisers from women's forums are always ready to explain that a frequent heartbeat is a sign that a girl is growing in the womb, and a measured fast heartbeat is more typical of boys.
The heart rate of the fetus has nothing to do with its gender. Another thing is the tone of beating, which some of the obstetricians of the "old formation" in the later stages can really use to determine the sex of the paunch. Therefore, the method is not accurate.
By signs
There are a great many different signs and signs of a child's gender. This is the definition of the belly (belly "corner" - to the boy, "ball" - to the girl), and fortune-telling by the date of conception, by the day of sexual intercourse, by the age of the father. Definition by the belly is available only at a later date, when the belly itself becomes obvious, and the method does not pretend to be true, since the shape of a woman's abdomen depends on how is the placenta located, what are the dimensions of its small pelvis, the amount of water, etc.
The desire of the expectant mother to eat sweets should not be associated with the fact that the girl should be expected, as when eating meat and cucumbers, it is not at all necessary that a woman is expecting a boy.
Science has never studied this relationship, since the connection itself exists only in popular rumor.
Another sign says that moodiness and tearfulness during pregnancy is a sign of expecting a daughter, and calmness and drowsiness is a sign of a boy. Any changes in mood during the period of bearing a baby are not associated with the sex of the latter, but with the current hormonal changes in the female body. Hormones also affect how a woman looks. It is progesterone, and not the sex of the child, that gives the woman attractiveness and femininity while waiting for the baby.
Reliable ways
If you do not turn to alternative methods, the reliability and effectiveness of which raises serious doubts, then there are more reliable methods for finding out the sex of the baby, even in the early stages. Since on ultrasound the external genitals of the baby up to 13-14 weeks are not possible to evaluate and examine, and with greater accuracy you can get a conclusion only at 15-16 weeks of pregnancy, it is worth discussing the methods that women can use earlier than these terms.
NIPT - non-invasive DNA test
This is the most accurate method, sometimes more accurate than ultrasound, since gender is determined with an accuracy of 99% as a result of a non-invasive prenatal test (NIPT). None of the modern existing diagnostic methods have such efficiency.
The test is a routine blood test. The minimum period for which a woman can pass such an analysis is 9 weeks of pregnancy or more. It is very important to calculate the period more accurately by weeks and days, otherwise there is a possibility of erroneous testing. Nine weeks is exactly 9 weeks from the date of your last period and 5 weeks after the start of the delay. The fact is that during this period the child develops its own red blood cells - erythrocytes. In part, they can overcome the placental barrier and enter the mother's bloodstream.
It is the erythrocytes of the fetus that laboratory technicians must isolate from a sample of the woman's venous blood, after which fetal DNA is isolated from them by sequencing.
The test allows you to get an answer not only to the question of what gender of the child the parents are expecting (46XX - girl, 46XY - boy). He answers another important question - is the child healthy. With high accuracy, the analysis shows the risks of chromosomal abnormalities (Down syndrome, Patau and others).
In our country, NIPT began to be carried out not so long ago, and its cost is quite high, moreover, not every clinic or medical center can do such a study - it will be necessary to find a medical institution that can carry out genetic examinations.
NIPT errors are possible, but only if the analysis was done too early, with multiple pregnancies (three fetuses), with a surrogate mother carrying a baby (it will be very difficult to isolate fetal DNA in the blood of a biologically extraneous woman for a woman's child), as well as during pregnancy after IVF using a donor egg.
The analysis costs from 30 to 60 thousand rubles, the results need to wait about two weeks, because, like all genetic studies, the analysis requires time.
Invasive methods
This is a complex of manipulations that allow medical workers to obtain fetal materials for genetic research. A thin long needle is inserted into the uterus by puncturing the anterior abdominal wall or posterior fornix of the vagina, with the help of which specialists, under ultrasound control, collect amniotic fluid and umbilical cord blood for examination.
To determine the sex of a child, these methods are not used, they have other indications - the identification of chromosomal abnormalities of the fetus. Invasive methods are recommended by a council of doctors after a woman receives unsatisfactory results from the first prenatal screening with a high risk of having a sick child. Simultaneously with the diseases, genetics, during the study of the obtained biomaterial, determine the sex of the child.
Invasive methods can be are quite dangerous due to the risk of infection, subsequent miscarriage, mechanical injury to the child with tools. That is why SPD is not used as an independent method for gender diagnostics.
Gender tests
Along with ovulation tests and pregnancy tests, modern women are offered other tests - gender. They can be purchased on Internet sites and used at home - the sex of the child, test manufacturers offer to determine the urine of the expectant mother.
These are ordinary test strip strips that are sensitive to the boys' sex hormone, testosterone. After the 10th week of pregnancy, the baby's urine begins to be excreted by the mother's kidneys, because the amniotic fluid is constantly being updated.
But experts are skeptical about such tests, because the amount of the child's sex hormones in the mother's urine is so insignificant that it cannot be "caught" even in laboratory conditions, what can we say about home tests!
Thus, the accuracy of these tests is not high, which cannot be said about the cost. To use it or not is a personal matter for everyone. Usually, during the second, third and subsequent pregnancies, women are more sensible in determining the sex of the child and are not spent on such purchases.
