A woman's diet when she conceives may well influence the gender of her baby.
Research suggests a high calorie diet around ovulation and regular breakfasts - might increase the chances of giving birth to a boy. The researchers say the modern trend to opt for low-fat hence lower calorie diets might explain why fewer boys are being born in developed countries. In the past 40 years there has been a small but consistent decline, of about one per 1,000 births annually, in the proportion of boys being born in industrialised countries, including the UK.
The study by the Universities of Exeter and Oxford focused on 740 first-time pregnant mothers in the UK, who were asked to keep records of their eating habits before and during the early stages of pregnancy. They found that 56% of women with the highest calorie intake around the time of conception had boys, compared to just 45% among women with the lowest energy intake. Women who had sons were more likely to have eaten breakfast cereals and were also more likely to have eaten a higher quantity and wider range of nutrients.
It is known from IVF research that high levels of glucose encourage the growth and development of male embryos while inhibiting female embryos. In humans, skipping breakfast depresses glucose levels and so may be interpreted by the body as indicating poor environmental conditions and low food availability.
Dr Allan Pacey, a fertility expert at the University of Sheffield, said there was good evidence that nature had subtle ways of changing the sex ratio of a population in response to a variety of circumstances. "I would urge women to not to start starving themselves in order to try influence the sex of their baby...It has been observed in some animal studies that even small changes in female diet can affect the life long health of the offspring, so it is important that the mother has appropriate nutrition at the time of conception and throughout her pregnancy."
April 2008
The study, by the Universities of Exeter and Oxford, appears in the Royal Society Journal Biological Sciences.
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