Parenting: Preconception
Kathy Varble, of Tallahassee, Fla., is a expecting a baby at the end of this month. A baby boy, just as she and her husband wanted. The couple already has a daughter, age 4, and knew they were only going to have one more child. Although they would have been happy with either a boy or girl, they wanted to maximize their chances of it being a boy.
“My husband is the last Varble, and we really wanted to give having a boy our best shot,” she says. “It wasn’t something where we would have made the huge financial investment to guarantee a boy, but to try a natural method that really only required the cost of a book seemed realistic to me.”
Gender Selection
The method Varble chose to try is outlined by Dr. Mark Moore in his book Baby Girl or Baby Boy: Determining the Sex of Your Child (Washington Publishers, 2002). Co-written with his wife, Lisa, a registered nurse, it details some practices that are generally believed to increase a couple’s chances of influencing the gender of their baby. While there are no guarantees, Dr. Moore estimates that, if it’s followed correctly, it has a statistical probability of working 80 percent of the time.
Dr. Moore’s method is based on factors such as timing of ovulation and intercourse; there are other methods that involve more medical intervention. Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis is a type of IVF that guarantees a boy or girl, but it runs about $20,000. It also raises some difficult ethical questions, as it often results in the production of too many viable embryos that need to be dealt with in some manner.
MicroSort, the newest technology, involves artificial insemination of “sorted” sperm, and runs abut $2,500 per attempt. The success rate of this method is estimated to be about 91 percent for boys and 76 percent for girls. While these high-tech options are intriguing, the cost makes them impossible for some couples. As a result, there is constant interest in low-cost, natural ways to choose your child's gender.
The Method
One of the earliest low-tech methods was developed by Dr. Landrum B. Shettles, who wrote the ground-breaking book How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby (Main Street Books; Revised edition, 1996) back in the 1960s. Dr. Moore’s method is similar to the method developed by Dr. Shettles, but Dr. Moore has “tweaked” it to take advantage of recent discoveries in the environmental and behavioral science of conception.
Before trying either of the methods, however, it’s very important to track your ovulation date so that you know exactly when you ovulate. Here are some of the ways Dr. Moore suggests will maximize a couple’s chances of a girl or a boy.
For a baby boy, the Y sperm need to be more plentiful and to make their way to the egg easier and faster.
- Avoid sexual activity for three to four days before the calculated ovulation date.
- No hot tubs or hot baths for the man at least one week before this time. He should also avoid wearing briefs.
- Have intercourse one time only on the ovulation date. Use condoms for any subsequent sexual activity.
- The man should drink coffee or caffeinated soda two hours before sex; this increases sperm counts.
- After sex, the woman should lie still for 20 minutes.
- Avoid artificial lubricants.
For a baby girl, the X sperm need to be more plentiful.
- To lower the sperm count, have frequent intercourse on days 5 through 8 of the woman’s cycle.
- On days 9, 10 and 11, have daily intercourse.
- The sexual position should be face to face.
- Avoid artificial lubricants.
- No sex on days 12, 13 or 14, or for at least two days after ovulation, except with condoms.
Dr. Moore also notes in his book that selecting a child’s gender shouldn’t be taken too seriously, but he thinks using his methods make trying that much more fun. Wendell Hanson and his wife went into the whole process with that mindset. They, like the Varbles, knew that they were only going to have two children, so they decided to try for a boy using Dr. Moore’s method. It worked for them, but Hanson says he wouldn’t have cared if they’d had another girl either.
“The main thing we were praying for was that the baby be healthy, but liked the idea of having one of each,” he says. “We’re from a family that runs toward girls, so we felt we needed a little extra help to try to have a boy.” Hanson says he would, and has, recommended the method to other couples.
Varble cautions that it’s very important to follow Dr. Moore’s techniques to the letter. She says it’s not difficult, but it’s the combination of the different approaches that are so effective. “Dr. Moore was the anesthesiologist for a minor surgery that I had about a year before I got pregnant, and just as he was putting me under, I heard a nurse talking to him about how her daughter had tried his method and it hadn’t worked,” says Varble. “But then she started telling him how her daughter had done some of what he recommended but not all of it. When I woke up for some reason I remembered that and when I decided to try for a boy I was determined to follow every step. It worked for me.”
