What Are the Differences Between Heartbeats in a Male & Female Fetus?
Wouldn't it be nice to have a simple test to determine early on if you should be buying pink or blue booties? Prior to the 1980s it was believed that if your baby's fetal heart rate was 140 beats per minute or faster you would have a girl, while if ti was slower than 140 beats per minute you would have a boy. But modern studies have disproved those suppositions.
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The First Trimester
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Doctors from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, studied 966 pregnant women in their first trimester to determine if gender-related differences in fetal heart rate could be identified. Their results showed the average female heart rate to be almost exactly the same as the average male fetal heart rate, leading them to conclude that no such differences existed---at least not during the first three months of pregnancy.
Sonographic Evidence
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Terry DuBose, MS, RDMS, Director Diagnostic Medical Sonography Program at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences reports that by 1993 the Austin Radiological Association (ARA) had collected over 10,000 sets of fetal parameters all supporting the conclusion that gender could not be determined by the fetal heart rate.
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Heart Rates Differ During Delivery
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In 2008, "The New York Times" reported a study published by "The British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology," confirming the results of their predecessors' finding of inconclusive differences in the fetal heartbeats of the 79 pregnant women studied. They did, however, note that the female heart rate is considerably faster during labor than their male counterparts, though the reasons for this are still unknown.
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References
- Photo Credit pregnant woman image by Roman Barelko from Fotolia.com
