mark (04/20/83)
Around 10 years ago, there was a book published called "Choose Your Baby's Sex". I can't remember the name of the MD who wrote it, but I think he was at some university in New York City. The basic principle seemed to make sense, and was claimed to have been scientifically derived by experimental means and by looking at sperm samples under a microscope. However, it was (obviously) quite controversial at the time, and he was collecting data to be able to get some statistical support for the claim that it worked. There was an article in Readers Digest back then describing the method. (Anyone interested can probably find the book at their public library.) The basic principle of the method is that the vagina is a hostle environment to a sperm, and that boy-producing sperm are faster swimmers than girl-producing sperm, but are less hardy so get killed off more easily in that environment. Thus, for a boy you would make love right at the time of ovulation (causing the boy-producing sperm to reach the egg first), but for a girl you would make love 2 days before ovulation, so that mostly girl-producing sperm would be all that survive the 2 days. (Sperm can survive up to around 48 hours.) This is obviously not foolproof, but can shift the odds somewhat. There were lots of other things you could do to further shift the odds, although not as much, including degree of penetration, frequency of intercourse, foods affecting the pH of the mothers body, and boxer vs. jockey shorts on the father. In general, things that encourage males also encourage conception, while girl methods tend to kill off most of the sperm and require several tries. I think the claim was that by combining all these methods, and not cheating any, you could get around 97% odds of eventual success. My question is this. He's had plenty of time to collect data and tell if it really works. Does anyone out there in the medical community know of any more recent findings on his method?