How to Increase the Odds of Conceiving a Girl

Many women have a strong desire to plan and know the sex of their children. Whether trying for a baby girl to balance out a brood of rowdy boys or to fulfill a life dream of having a daughter, women actively subscribe to folk solutions or the Shettles Method, sometimes using scientific selection to conceive a baby girl.

Instructions

Folk Solutions/Urban Legends

1. Eat lots of fish and vegetables during the time you are trying to conceive. Give in to all of your chocolate cravings.

2. Take calcium and magnesium supplements in the months leading to conception.

3. Take Sudafed the day before intercourse to create an environment attractive to sperm containing the X chromosome.

4. Make love in the woman-on-top or missionary position with the woman climaxing before the man.

Shettles Method

1. Time your intercourse during optimal times to conceive a girl as outlined by Landrum B. Shettles in his book "How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby."

2. Chart the woman's cervical mucus and basal body temperature with the help of an ovulation-predictor kit.

3. Have sex 2 1/2 to three days before ovulation, with the male partner performing shallow penetration.

4. Avoid female orgasm during intercourse, as it may make the vagina too alkaline for the girl-producing sperm.

Selective Science

1. Go to a fertility clinic and pay for a Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis, or PGD.

2. Choose the sex of your baby by having the embryos created outside the body so that they can be tested for gender and selectively implanted.

3. Pay for a MicroSort artificial insemination.

4. Have doctors sort the boy- and girl-producing sperm and implant the desired sex into the uterus through artificial insemination.

Tips & Warnings

• PGD is by far the most accurate gender-selection method but also the most costly. MicroSort sets your chances to conceive a female at 85%, according to the Gender Selection Center.

• No reputable studies support folk remedies or the Shettles Method. Following these methods are not certain to work.

References

• "How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby;" Landrum B. Shettles and David Rorvik; 1971
• Gender Selection Center: Treatment Options
• Gender Selection Center: Treatments Success Rate