Doctors will tell you that gender prediction is a lottery and nothing else, because no-one can truly know what chromozome that one lucky sperm cell carries. But even so, who's to say you can't have a little bit of fun? After all, the results may surprise you.
Here are 10 ways for you to tell ahead of time what type of trouble you're in for, all relating to music to help lodge them firmly into your memory:
1. Aha - Hunting High and Low
As the song suggests, there's a bit of scouting involved in this method, and it's very much a matter of perspective. Take out the compass, dust it off and look south of the border -which, in this case, is the belly button. Old wives' tales say that if the mum-to-be is carrying high, she's in for pink tutus, but if she's carrying low, she'd best bring out theblue bibs.
But what happens if you're having twins? Those old wives may not have thought this through. If the lady's front porch is an indistinct bulge, she may be looking at twice as many nappy changes. Or maybe even thrice! In any case, keep in mind that most bumps are low at first, until the baby grows and decides to take up residence upstairs, where the stomach used to be. You may also have heard that babies tend to position themselves lower with each new pregnancy.
2. Roxette - Listen to Your Heart
A handheld Doppler device could point you in the right direction. This fetal heart rate monitor may not be able to give you any visuals, but it will detect and show you your baby's heart rate. Legend has it that damsels' hearts beat faster than 140 bpm, while caballeros like to to play it cool.
Who's to say your child isn't just paying extra attention to mum's yoga lessons, or that the mother's not eating too much chocolate and passing the sugar onto her tyke? Nobody. Still if you're not particularly pleased with the heartbeat reading, don't bother pinching the bump to wake the baby up. Even if the little bundle of joy does spend most of the time sleeping, the heart-rate doesn't change that much from one state to the next. It's usually between 120 and 160 beats per minute, and fluctuations aren't really that noticeable because the rate is meant to slow down as the pregnancy advances.
3. The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony
Ah, cravings! Leave it to folklore to make them sound like a treat. If you ask any grandmother, she'll probably tell youcraving sweets during pregnancy is a sign that you're having a girl. If the mum-to-be craves salty or sour foods, though, you can expect granny to start knitting a pair of very uncomfortable, allergy inducing blue wool booties.
Isn't she a doll, though? Before you chuck those booties out, know that you may not have to ever give them to your child. There's no connection between the mother's cravings and the baby's gender that we know of. If that were so, then ladies with pica would have a very hard time explaining those charcoal stains on their teeth. But for your own amusement, do try to pretend like you wouldn't eat absolutely anything because you're always hungry, and would rather just stick with a certain category of foods.
4. Jennifer Hudson - Spotlight
If ever there was a pregnancy myth out there that sounded slightly offensive to the fairer sex, it must surely be the wild notion that girls steal their mums' beauty. This idea is something bitter mum-in-laws must have conjured up to pick on their sons' partners for daring to have spots all over their bodies due to hormonal changes, something ladies never had back in the day.
Just as they never had alcohol, contraception, or soap back in the day. Whatever brought on this unflattering myth, let's bear in mind the fact that hormones
are currently beyond our understanding. Hopefully, though, the day will come when pregnant ladies can safely say: 'It's not my daughter that turned me into the unrecognizable beast that roams this house in search of another mirror to break. It was all down to the horm
5. Marilyn Monroe - Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend
Diamonds are nothing other than carbon that women relentlessly seek to add to their collection to make up for their fading looks and aging body. But enough about diamonds, let's talk about diamond rings! Yes, ladies and gents.Legend has it that strapping a diamond flashing ring on a piece of string and holding said piece of string over theexpectant mother's belly will reveal the baby's gender.
Apparently, if the piece of string moves in a circle over the belly in and of itself, the mother is carrying a boy. If it just goes back and forth aimlessly, it's a girl. Of course, physicists will say that centrifugal motion is all a matter of how the fingers are holding the string, but who are we to judge? By all means, parents, let your wedding rings open the portal to a world that knows what the baby is. It's not in the least bit spooky!6. Aerosmith - Sick as a Dog
Most ladies don't expect to feel anything other than lightheadedness and quiziness as the body adjusts to the notion that it's harbouring an alien body within. But hormonal changes can sometimes play tricks on a body. For some ladies, morning sickness is a walk in the park. For others, it's a 9-month walk by the bins, where hopefully nobody will notice what they had for breakfast, lunch, dinner and between-meal snacks that day. For that matter, they'll probably not be able to drink anything, either.
For some reason, the lore of the land states that ladies who are expecting a rosy-cheeked princesses experience worse sickness than those carrying miniature versions of the not-so-fair sex. Why that should be true is a mystery, especially since doctors are still finding it hard to make the distinction between morning sickness and hyperemesis gravidarum, which is a serious, debilitating and emaciating condition that a good deal of mums-to-be must face. Aw, well! Until such a time as Aerosmith can find a way to put morning sickness into words, we'll probably never know.7. Little Mix - DNA
In this day and age, there's little you can't find out from a simple swab. There are companies now that will reveal the gender of your baby using a simple finger prick. Considering it's the same method used to measure blood sugar levels, it makes you wonder just how effective the method is. But rest assured, there are proven ways to analyse asample that small and come up with relevant results.
A company called International Biosciences swears by them, in fact. Luckily, the company also offers prenatal paternity tests, so you can kill two birds with one stone, ladies and gents. The way the DNA test works is by analysing the mother's blood to isolate that of the baby, which transfers to her via the placenta. If the Y chromosome is identified in the fetal DNA, then Eureka! You're in for a roller-coaster ride courtesy of a mischievous little boy.8. The Streets - On the Flip of a Coin
You don't need to be a Statistician to know that your baby's chances of being either gender are 50-50. Still, that's no reason to keep trying for a boy even after you've racked up enough daughters to start your very own all-family volleyball team. Odds are odds, and no coin flip will tell you what gender your baby is. Speaking of which, there are a few gender predictor tests out there that specialise in making that coin flip more dramatic, such as Gendermaker, Momma Bear and Intelligender.
They are all urine tests, and banned in certain countries for claiming to be scientifically proven to work. In reality, they're only for entertainment purposes, and they have good refund policies in place for those whose tests were misleading. Of course they do, because of the 50% of their customers who don't turn out to have what they expected, some won't care that the result was wrong, some would be too tired changing a newborn's nappy to remember, and the odd few will claim their refund. Everybody wins!ones.9. Coldplay - Princess Of China
You may have heard of the Chinese calendar, and how it's spot-on about half of the forecasts it makes. You'll find many a reference to this ancestral gender predictor, and there are several websites the likes of Bump.com that offer forms where you can simply type in the mother's age and the month of conception, and Voila! Congratulations, it's a random gender! There are several questions to be asked before you go on and believe what the test says, though.
One is how will the test allow for mothers who were born pre-term, and subtracted a year out of their 'due' age when filling the form. Another is, if the actual Chinese calendar has nothing to do with the Gregorian one that the rest of us use, and is instead based on astronomical events, then what exactly constitutes the month of 'January' in this table? But stop there! These are just the kind of questions you shouldn't dwell on. Instead, fill in the form and have a chuckle. It's all in good fun.
10. Aneka - Japanese Boy
If you've never heard of this song, it's probably for the best. If you've never heard of the Japanese Calendar, it's probably also for the best. It draws on the same principles as the gender predictor chart above, except the Japanese also happen to use our Gregorian calendar. For a glimpse into the future in a dimension where your child may or not be the same gender as the one you'll have in this one, try this fun chart.
It asks for the father and mother's birth month, aside from the dreaded month of conception. The main head-scratcher with this chart is most people don't know the exact minute they were born, so those born on the cusp of a new month could have their work cut out for them. Secondly, it's not unusual for conception to happen hours, if not days after the parents exchange pleasantries, so, then, who's to say the bun in that oven isn't glazed with pink icing?
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