Pregnant's Diet May Affect Baby's Gender

A recent study entitled "You are what your mother eats" by Fiona Matthews claims that there are other factors that affect the offspring's sex particularly - a mother's diet. She further states that the gender of the child is not purely by chance. For instance, if a woman has more intake of calories or eats more breakfast cereal, salt, and potassium, she will most probably produce boys than girls. "

Published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, this study conducted a survey among 740 pregnant women who were yet to know the sex of their babies.

This recent study gives us a new light on what we have learned in our Biology classes that it is the male who determines the sex of the baby and women have nothing to do with it. Such as that when a man contributes an X chromosome, the child is female and a male baby when he contributes Y chromosome.

There are a lot of recent researches done in evolutionary biology as more scientists have more questions on what actually transpires inside the uterus at pregnancy. Since not all fertilized egg survive, scientist Matthew contends that most likely the mother's environment, health and well being does "promote the survival of one gender over the other." Matthew adds, in spite of the higher rate of baby boys among women who had more intake of potassium and sodium, this is still not enough proof for that "cause-and-effect gender determination. This findings still need further study.