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Low-Tech Ways to Choose Your Baby's Gender

Using the Shettles Method or Whelan Method to Conceive
a Boy or Girl

Part 1

By Virginia Gilbert

"All I want is a healthy baby."

Although this wish tops every pregnant woman's list, many moms-to-be harbor a secret, or not so secret, desire for a boy or a girl.

At some fertility clinics, high-tech sperm-spinning can yield the preferred gender up to 90 percent of the time. But for couples who can't afford this pricey procedure, or who shudder at the idea of "playing God," employing one of the more natural sex selection methods may help them get the baby they want inexpensively, without stepping on Mother Nature's toes.

Folklore is full of creative, often wacky, suggestions for choosing a baby's sex. According to the Old Wives, women should eat meat and salty food to get a boy, or splurge on desserts to get a girl. Couples supposedly are more likely to conceive sons if they make love standing up or when there's a quarter moon. Conversely, daughters are in the picture if partners use the missionary position or have sex during a full moon.

The Chinese conception chart, which has been around for some 700 years, tells women what dates will result in boy or girl conceptions based on the mother's age and the month of conception.

These methods are entertaining to read about, and in some cases to practice, but none has any legitimate scientific merit. For example, going by the Chinese conception chart, this writer's son should have been a daughter.

In the early 1960s, Dr. Landrum B. Shettles published a groundbreaking report on the distinctive characteristics of Y-bearing (boy-producing) and X-bearing (girl-producing) sperm. He asserted that the Y sperm are lighter in weight, swim faster, but die sooner; the X sperm are heavier, swim slower, but live longer. Shettles expanded this central thesis into a low-tech method of gender selection. His resulting book, How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby

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