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Pregnancy – if you want a boy, watch what you eat!
The more you eat around the time of conception, the greater your chance is of giving birth to a boy.
This persistent rumour has now been confirmed by a team of British researchers. It is based on the relationship between the calorie intake of mothers-to-be and the sex of the unborn child. And it does indeed seem that it all begins with what we eat! The researchers studied the dietary habits of 740 mothers-to-be from all over England before and after conception. The number of calories, the variety of vitamins and nutrients … every aspect of what these young women ate was literally gone through with a fine-tooth comb.
The results show that 56% of those who consumed a diet high in calories, potassium, calcium and vitamins C, E and B12, gave birth to a boy. Which is 10% higher than among the women who had a lower calorie intake. Should we therefore conclude that a male embryo requires more energy than a female embryo? This is a step further than the researchers are prepared to go. The exact mechanism governing this is still not clear as far as they are concerned.
However, what is clear is that dietary habits play a key role in the development of pregnancy. The tendency that exists in developed countries to go without breakfast and to opt for a low-calorie diet could go some way to explaining the drop in the male infant birth rate.
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