Can you pick what gender your child will have? (1 Viewer)

[dave_brogli]

Yeah this is waaaayyyyy off topic. But my wife and I are considering adding another child to our family. The problem is, is that we have 2 BOYS. We really want a girl. I mean thats really one of the only reasons for us to attempt to have another one. I just would really like a daughter.
Anyways since I know that guys are responsible for determining the sex of a child, is there any tricks or tips to maybee get my female sperm production up???
Any thoughts?

oh, and we want to still do it the fun way No artificial insemination or any crap like that..

 

[Henry Carmona]

There "may" be some contributing factors that will sway it one way or another, but according to my Genetics professor, there is no real guarantee.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Old folklore has it that fighter pilots tend to father more daughters than sons due to the G's they subject their, uh, joystick and orbs to on a regular basis...

So perhaps bungee jumping might help with this matter...

 

[Leila Dougan]

You may be interested in the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books

Besides all the very valuable information on fertility, it includes a chapter on predicting the sex of your child. There is no definite, guaranteed way to do it, but there are some things to try.

The whole book focuses charting cycles (I'm not sure if that's something your wife would be interested in doing). It depends on the week before ovulation and when you actually try. If you want a girl, essentially you have intercourse a few days before ovulation but NOT the day before or day of. If you want a boy, you wait until the day before and day of.

Not completely accurate, but I have some friends who've successfully chosen the gender of their child. It does, however, take a fair bit of work to figure out when ovulation is going to occur so you'd even know when to try (and no, it's not always day 14). Anyway, read the book if you're interested and see if it's something that works for the two of you.

 

[Max Leung]

There is a method for separating the X sperm from the Y sperm (Y sperm give you the guy baby). Basically there is a device which is like a centrifuge, which "spins" the sperm such that they line up on different sides of the tube. Or something like that. I'll dig up the info once I search www.bottomquark.com (my favorite science news site).

 

[Max Leung]

Whoops, they use a laser beam, not a centrifuge...

Couples Choose Babies' Sexes

The Microsort technique, offered by the Genetics and IVF Clinic in Fairfax, Virginia, is 91% effective at producing girls and 74% effective for boys.

It costs £1,400, but the final cost can be between £4,000 and £15,000 after couples pay for insemination costs, scans or IVF treatment.

It involves marking the head of sperm with a fluorescent dye which attaches itself to DNA. They are then placed in droplets of liquid which are fired at 100 mph through a laser beam.

Sperm which will produce girls have more DNA and therefore more dye in their heads, allowing the laser to separate them.

The technique is performed in the states, so your family should be in luck!

(Did I mention that Bottomquark.com rules?)

Now, it's not clear if you can do this the old fashioned way or not. It should be possible, but may not be worth the cost. Hopefully they improved the technique so that they can sort out the sperm, and give you a vial containing the girlie sperm only.

I suggest you give them a call first, and don't just reject the notion without communicating your needs first!

 

[Craig Robertson]

if there was any natural way, i wouldn't have five boys, a vasectomy and a pissed off wife.

 

[Chris Farmer]

I can't htink of any "natural" way to do this, although with modern technology all bets are off. First, the wife has no control whatsoever, the egg has absolutely no effect at all on the gender of the child. When you have sex will make no difference. Gender depends entirely on sperm. The process that creates sperm is random. Basically it starts with a single spermatacite cell, and generates four sperm cells, two of which have a Y chromosome (leads to a son) and two having an X (leading to a daughter). Basically, during sex, half the sperm released are "male," half are "female," and it's pure random chance which reaches the egg first. If you want to control the gender of your child, you need to find a way to sort Y sperm from X sperm.

 

[Evan Case]

I've nothing to add to the topic, other than I did double and triple takes looking at the thread title--it wasn't computing in my brain properly. I kept misreading "sex child" as one entity, which needless to say gave the sentence a very strange meaning.

Carry on.

Evan (I swear I'm not sick )

 

[Travis Olson]

I'm sorry but the thread title cracked me up. If anything this post might give you a chuckle. I'd like to quote Jack Handy.

"I believe in making the world safe for our children, but not for or children's children, because I don't think children should be having sex." - Jack Handy

 

[dave_brogli]

lol at Evan....
it took me like 10 minutes to try and word the title ... after I posted I noticed it kinda read funny to!

Anyways thanks guys! another boy wouldnt be so bad I would just like to have a girl. Well see. Ill do some of the reading you guys offered and cross my fingers........
Its kinda funny I never expected 9 posts on this. Never knew you guys knew so much

 

[Cees Alons]

Changed the thread title. Hope it is more clear now.

Cees

 

[Leila Dougan]

Chris, I completely understand how the X and Y chromosome thing.

And yes, it does matter when you have sex. It's been shown that male sperm are faster swimmers than female sperm, but that their lifespan is very short. Female sperm are slower swimmers but can hang around longer.

A woman only ovulates on one day and is only fertile for about 24 hrs. If you have sex the day of ovulation, chances are high that if a sperm does make it to the egg, it will be a male sperm.

However, if you have sex ONLY 4 days before ovulation, and still conceive, it will be highly probably that the sperm that survived for that long will be a female one.

So as you can see, timing DOES play an important role in the gender of your child.

 

[Angelo.M]

Here's a thought...

There are thousands of wonderful girls in China that are waiting to be adopted to the West. Why not consider that option? You will have a daughter and you will be providing the child with an opportunity that she might not otherwise get.

 

[Chris Farmer]

Leila, really? That's interesting, I'd never heard that before. Is it because of the difference in weight due to the smaller Y chromosome that allows the male sperm to swim faster? And why the longevity difference?

 

[Cees Alons]

Leila is right, the Y-loaded sperms are lighter. However it won't give you more than a small percentage more chance and there are other factors too. The fact that the two of you already have more than one daughter, may indicate such a factor (or it may be purely chance).

(One of my nephews and his wife have 5 daughters: two were born within 2 years, the third 3 years later; than a four year period and the last one after 7 years. You can almost see them thinking.... . They are very happy with those girls now, BTW ).

Tip: Have sex immediately after a war. Invariably, more males were born then for some yet not fully known reason. May have to wait some time...

Cees

 

[Danny R]

Whoops, they use a laser beam, not a centrifuge...

The dairy industry uses a centrifuge. Since female cows are more valuable to dairy farmers than male, they artificially inseminate the hefers after using a centrifuge to separate out the sperm. Male/female sperm weigh differently, so they can get a better percentage of females than nature provides.

How they get the bull's to cooperate I don't really want to know.

The process can be used for human sperm as well, but its not nearly as accurate as folks would like which is why techniques such as the laser separation were developed.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

My 8th grade science teacher had a family in her neighborhood growing up that had 14 girls and 1 boy. They were determined to have a son.

 

[Anders Englund]

How they get the bull's to cooperate I don't really want to know.

I suppose they strap them to one of thoes G-force thingies astronauts train with. Personally I might not be in the mood after that, but I'm not a bull...

--Anders

 

[Cees Alons]

They use a cow hide over a contraption. People are sitting under it with a receptacle. Make up the rest yourself .

Cees