17 Gender Prediction Methods You Can Do At Home
Image Credit: Elliott McFadden
When you become pregnant, I think we can agree that the one thing that you long to know is whether your baby will be a boy or a girl.
Well, you may be able to find out for sure as early as your 20 week scan – depending on if baby is in the correct position for the sonographer to be able to tell!
Long before there was ultrasound, mothers-to-be wanted to know what the sex of their baby would be, and so all sorts of folklore grew up about predicting the gender of your unborn child evolved.
Now, obviously none of these are scientific, and the methods can only suggest your baby’s gender, not confirm it. The only 100% way to be sure is to wait until your baby is born, although ultrasound technology is so good these days that by 20 weeks of pregnancy they are 99% accurate at identifying the gender of a baby.
But until then, why not have a go at these fun, if somewhat less scientific methods, and see if they turn out to be right or wrong. Are they just Old Wives Tales or do they work? You’ll have to wait until baby is born to be absolutely certain.
Gender Prediction Methods
- Morning Sickness
- Wedding Ring Test
- Shape of Bump Technique
- Chinese Gender Predictor
- Cravings
- Family History Method
- Mayan Gender Predictor
- Meal Eaten On The Day of Conception
- Baking Soda Method
- What Side Do You Sleep On?
- Dreams
- French Gender Predictor
- Forgetfulness
- Food Aversions
- Linea Nigra Test
- Moodiness
- Moroccan Gender Predictor
- Cold Feet
Are you suffering from a lot of morning sickness? It is thought that if you are very sick it means that you are slightly more likely to be are expecting a girl, but if you are not sick or your symptoms are very mild, you expecting a boy.
This popular way of predicting the sex of your baby requires some thread and a ring - when this test was first used it was assumed that if you were pregnant you would have a wedding ring to use - or any other ring.
Lie down on your back and ask another person to hold the ring from the piece of thread over your stomach and watch how the ring moves. If it moves in a circle you are supposed to be having a girl, if it swings like a pendulum, it is supposed to be a boy.
For this test you just need to look at yourself in the mirror. Are you carrying the baby high in your body with a very round bump? Then you are probably having a boy, but if your baby bump is low and wide, you are more likely to be expecting a girl.
The Chinese Gender Predictor chart is a very popular way of guessing the sex of your child. It is based on a chart which was allegedly discovered on a Chinese tomb and is over 700 years old.
For this you need to know the mother’s age at conception, and the month that the baby was conceived in. You then read the gender off the chart. You can have a go at the Chinese Gender Predictor Chart, or if you prefer to use an online calculator you can use this Chinese Gender Predictor Calculator, where you just have to enter the month of conception and mother’s age, and it will tell you the predicted sex of your baby, based on the Chinese Gender Predictor chart.
The next way to try and guess your baby’s gender is by thinking about any preganacy cravings that you are having.
Image Credit: Emiliano Vittoriosi
Are you craving salty food? It is probably a boy. Are you craving lots of sweet stuff? You are more likely to be expecting a girl.
For this technique, you have to think about the family of the father of your child. Are there more males or females in his family? Does he have a lot of brothers or male cousins, or lots of female siblings?
If there are a lot of boys in the family it is thought that heredity will come into play and that you are more likely to have a boy. But if he has a lot of females in the family, you are more likely to have a girl.
Image Credit: Raquel Moss
This next one requires just a little bit of maths, but only knowing if numbers are odd or even. The Mayan Gender Predictor is based on whether the mother’s age at conception and the month of conception are a combination of odd or even numbers.
If both numbers are odd or both even, you are thought to be having a girl, but if one is odd and one is even, you are probably having a boy.
If you want to try this one you can use The Mayan Gender Predictor Calculator which will work it all out for you, or if you are more of a visual person you may find it easier to use the Mayan Gender Predictor Chart. Like the Chinese Gender Predictor you just find your age and month of conception on thre chart and read off the result.
Can you remember what you ate on the day that you conceived? If the meal was rich in dairy it may make a girl more likely, while a meal high in nuts, soy and vegetables may make a boy more likely.
This one might remind you of your schooldays in the chemistry lab! Put a couple of spoonfuls of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate or bicarbonate of soda) in a dish and add a small amount of the mother’s urine. If it fizzes you will have a boy, if not it’s a girl.
Hmmm, well now for the science bit. Sodium bicarbonate is a mild alkali while urine is mildly acidic. So if you add urine to sodium bicarbonate you would expect get some fizzing as an acid reacts with an alkali.
A diet high in protein will make urine more acidic while a diet high in fruits and vegetables will make it more alkaline, so it probably has more to do with what mum eats while pregnant than the gender of her baby.
When you are pregnant you will need to get all the sleep that you can, because once baby is born sleep will be a precious commodity for a few months.
It is thought that if you usually sleep on your right-hand side you will have a girl, but if you regularly fall asleep on the left hand side, you will have a boy.
Some people believe that what you dream about while pregnant gives a clue to your baby’s gender.
Image Credit: 3907349
If you dream a lot about having a boy or a girl, consistently, they believe that it gives a clue to your baby’s sex.
In France apparently, it is believed that if a mother-to-be is walking and steps with her right foot first, she is most likely to have a boy, whereas if she steps first with her left foot, it will be a girl.
Are you finding that you are more clumsy and forgetful during your pregnancy? Well these symptoms which are sometimes described as “pregnancy brain” are supposed to hint at whether you are carrying a boy or a girl. If you are alert and awake it’s a girl but if you are a bit spaced out it’s a boy.
The opposite of cravings, maybe there are some foods that you normally like but cannot face eating during your pregnancy. This is supposed to be another gender predictor, as if you are turned off foods that you normally like it could indicate that you are having a boy.
If you have the common pregnancy symptom of developing a linea nigra, or black line down your stomach, the location of the line may also indicate whether you are expecting a boy or a girl.
If it runs from your navel upwards towards your chin, you are more likely to have a boy, whereas if it is heading towards your pubic bone, it’s probably a girl.
If you find yourself unusually moody during your pregnancy, not only can you blame the pregnancy hormones, you can also use them to guess at the gender of your baby.
Image Credit: Mediamodifier
If you are very moody it is supposed to indicate that you are expecting a girl. We hope that there is no gender stereotyping involved in this suggestion, but we suspect there may be.
If you are a bit squeamish about insects, you will want to skip this next one. In Morocco they try to guess the gender of a child by dropping an insect onto the pregnant mother’s belly. If the bug lands on its feet, you are having a boy, if not it will be a girl.
Do your feet feel cold during your pregnancy? This could be an indication that you are expecting a boy. This assumes that you don’t usually have cold feet, so if your feet are always cold when you are not pregnant, you can probably ignore this one.
So there you have it, a collection of fun and rather unscientific ways to try and predict the gender of your baby. You could have lots of fun working out whether you are having a girl or a boy using these methods, and you never know, some of them might even be right!
If you would like something a bit more scientific, here are the most accurate ways to find the gender of your baby.
If you want to choose a non-gendered colour scheme for your baby's nursery, here are some ideas for decorating a gender neutral nursery, including tips on choosing safe types of paint for a new baby's bedroom.
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