Lower testosterone women have more baby girls

If you are reading Conceive a girl blog and in addition consider yourself more of a “girly girl” than a tomboy, I think you will like what follows.

Have you ever wondered if there is some fundamental difference between those women that get boys, and those that give birth to girl babies? And how come some women seem to be “predestined” to have only boys, or only girls?

Well – it looks like there really is a big difference between those women, and it has to do with their hormonal status!

There is a growing evidence that women having higher level of a male sexual hormone called testosterone are more likely to have a boy baby. Conversely, women with lower levels of the same hormone are more likely to become the parents of a baby girl!

You may be surprised to learn that human sex ratio in not always exactly fifty-fifty anyway: historical data shows that it fluctuates. For example, during both World Wars the increase in baby boy’s birth was observed. How can scientists account for this fact if gender selection is nothing but blind luck?

That’s why some anthropologists and evolutionary biologists believe that gender selection is not decided by chance.

For many animals, including some mammals, it’s known that female dominance and having male offspring are somehow connected. Could it be it is the same with humans?

It all began with a study that used an Internet questionnaire to assess the personality traits of mothers-to-be.

In a list of 64 adjectives, such as proud, free, bored, awed and arrogant, there were 13 words having to do with higher levels of dominance. It turned out later that those women who ticked over 8 of the key words had an 80% chance of having a boy!

Dr Valerie Grant, a reproductive scientist from the University of Auckland, intrigued with these results, carried out further research that showed that those women who scored highly in the tests – also had high levels of testosterone.

What Dr Grant found seems to confirm the link between mother-to-be’s level of testosterone, thereby character traits having to do with dominance – and the gender of the baby she will conceive.

Taking it one step further, we can conclude that it’s a woman that decides the gender of the baby she’ll conceive. Father has nothing to do with it!:)

Gender selection may be an adaptation to the mother and her condition at or around the time of conception. Simply put, women will produce babies whose gender suits them better!

Scientists already knew that mothers behave differently towards their babies according to their sex [mothers of boys are more initiating, mothers of girls more responsive], but the conclusion was that this was because of the strength of sex stereotyping. I’d say there was evidence that the mothers were behaving in ways that were natural to them.

Dr Grant is herself a mother of three sons, and she observed long time ago that she could tell which gender her friends were likely to have from knowing their characters.

Dominant females conceive significantly more sons. It could be that dominant women are specially adapted, both physically and psychologically, for conceiving and raising male infants, and non-dominant women female infants.

And it doesn’t stop there: you are more likely to get the baby of the same gender your closest friends have!

It’s also quite likely that if you have one-sex children, your closest friends will have the same. Not only are you similar people, but you’ll probably feel more comfortable with their parenting style.

But what about those women who have children of both gender?

Variability of testosterone levels accounts for that.

If you’re like most women, you will have a medium amount of testosterone that fluctuates month to month, making it possible to produce an egg adapted to an X chromosome in one reproductive cycle, and then to an Y chromosome in the next. In women, testosterone is also very influenced by external stresses (for an example on the extreme – by war – as we noted above; but “normal” everyday stresses such as a death in family or changing jobs count just the same).

Some women however are, although still within a normal range, with either high or low testosterone levels. Those are the one who will always have boys – or always have girls!

Grant noted that before contraception was widely used, she saw families with 12 or 13 children of the same sex.

I would still never say “never” to these women, though. Testosterone dips with age. You could have six boys in a row and suddenly produce a girl in your forties.

Could you describe yourself as more nurturing, empathic and tolerant than confident or assertive?
You may have lower levels of testosterone – and are thus more likely to have a girl!