If you’re trying to influence the gender of your baby, there’s a lot of confusing advice out there on how to conceive a boy. A number of factors can influence the sex of your baby, and the more of these factors you take into account, the more chance you have of conceiving a baby boy. First, we need to consider how a baby’s sex is determined. The sex of a baby is determined by the type of sperm that fertilises the egg. If you want to know how to conceive a boy, you must first understand how gender selection works.
There are 2 types of sperm, X-sperm and Y-sperm. The X-sperm contain the X or female chromosome, and the Y-sperm contain the Y or male chromosome. So if you want to conceive a boy, a Y-sperm must reach and fertilise the egg first.
Most methods regarding how to conceive a boy are based around giving the Y-sperm an advantage over the X-sperm, increasing the odds the Y-sperm fertilises the egg.
The next factor is controlling your acidity levels. Scientific research has shown that the level of acidity in the woman’s reproductive tract will have a direct effect on determining the gender of a conceived baby.
Why is this the case? Well, as we’ve already seen, there are two types of sperm – Y-sperm, which carry the Y chromosome, leading to conception of a boy, and X-sperm, which carry the X chromosome, leading to conception of a girl.
Now, this is the important part – while the Y-sperm are smaller and faster than the X-sperm, they are also less resilient, and cannot easily survive if the environment is too acidic. X-sperm on the other hand, are slower but stronger, and are much more likely to survive in an acidic environment.
So – if the woman’s reproductive tract is too acidic, the Y-sperm will die quickly, leaving only the stronger X-sperm remaining. This will lead to conception of a girl. So in order to give the Y-sperm a helping hand, the reproductive tract needs to be more alkaline – in other words, a less harsh environment. This means that the Y-sperm are much more likely to survive, and because of their greater speed, are much more likely to fertilise the woman’s egg than the slower X-sperm.
So, if you’d like to conceive a boy, you’re much more likely to do so by controlling acidity levels in the reproductive tract.
Smoking is a thought to be an important factor in conceiving a boy. A very interesting study published in 2002 by Professor Anne Grete Byskov of the University Hospital of Copenhagen, suggests that non-smokers are more likely to conceive a boy.
A team of scientists investigated the smoking habits of the parents of just under 12,000 newborn babies for the last 3 months before the pregnancy was confirmed. They found that the proportion of boys to girls was highest when the parents were non smokers, and that the proportion of girls to boys was highest in the heaviest smoking group of the study.
They also found a clear increase in the probability of conceiving a girl as the level of cigarette consumption increased. What’s the reason for this? Well, the scientists hypothesised that Y-sperm, which contain the male chromosome, are more susceptible to the toxins in cigarette smoke. This is supported by the trend of fewer baby boys being born in many developed countries – where more of the population are smokers. So – if you want to know how to conceive a boy – giving up smoking seems like a very good start.
Research shows that sexual position is another influencing factor to consider when trying to conceive a boy. Again, this comes back to the differences between male (Y) and female (X) sperm. Because the male sperm are quicker than the female sperm, you can give them a helping hand by decreasing the distance they have to travel to fertilise the egg. This distance seems very small to you and I, but to a single sperm, getting to the egg is the equivalent of a human swimming from England, all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to New York. So you can appreciate that if the sperm are deposited a few extra inches inside the woman’s body, that will make a huge difference to the distance they have to travel.
So how do you get them closer to the egg? Well, this can be achieved by using the right sexual position. Positions that achieve deeper penetration will deposit the sperm closer to the egg, giving the male sperm a greater chance of getting there first. Basically, the shorter the distance they need to travel, the greater the chance they have of surviving the swim. Think back to that swim across the Atlantic Ocean again, and you’ll appreciate why this is important.
The final factor we can look at it heat – do you know that you’re more likely to conceive a boy when the weather is hot? Sounds daft? A study of birth rates combined with weather data between 1946 and 1995 showed that the sex ratio correlates to the temperature just before the time of conception.
The study found that more boys were conceived during periods of hot weather, compared to more girls during periods of cold weather. The study concluded that, as sperm in the testicles are affected by temperature variations, that female (X) sperm could be damaged more easily by higher temperatures than male (Y) sperm – so more boys are conceived during periods of hot weather.
So if you’re looking for how to conceive a boy, you should take into account all the above factors.
Vince Castle runs How To Conceive A Boy, a blog and information resource on methods to improve your chances of conceiving a baby boy.