Trying to conceive a baby boy? What is the best method?

There have been many claims that changing when you have sex or changing your sexual position will help increase your chances for having  a boy or a girl. Is this true? Keep Reading!

This article is about trying to use sex timing or sex position to conceive a boy. If you are only interested in trying to become pregnant, read other articles to learn about whether sex position helps you get pregnant, how to optimize timing  and use of vaginal lubricants.

A little scientific background

In human beings, the gender of a baby is determined by the chromosomes.  Females have two X chromosomes and males have one X and one Y chromosome.

Fig 1

All of the eggs in a woman’s ovaries contain an X chromosome. However, exactly one half of the sperm from a man contains an X chromosome and one half contains a Y chromosome.

After a couple has sex, if a sperm with an X chromosome fertilizes an egg, the embryo produced will be female.  On the Other hand, if a sperm with a Y chromosome fertilizes an egg, the embryo will be male.

Since half of the sperm has a Y chromosome, half of all embryos made will be male embryos. Some couples who have had multiple children of one sex believe that the male only produces one kind of sperm or the other. This is not true!

Those men still have equal amounts of each kind of sperm. When IVF was done on those couples and test the gender of the embryos, it still comes out to be around 50% boys and 50% girls.

Let’s look closely at an X chromosome and a Y chromosome.

Fig 2

As you can see, the Y chromosome is much smaller. Some people have claimed that this makes the sperm which hold a Y chromosome swim faster but not survive as long. However, there’s actually no evidence that X and Y sperm swim at different speeds and there’s no evidence that  they survive differently, so this theory is flawed right from the start.

According to the theory, if you have sex closer to the time of ovulation or if your sexual position releases sperm closer to the cervix, which is the opening of the uterus, then the faster swimming male forming sperm will  be more likely to reach the egg and increase the chances for a boy.

Three studies have tried to test this theory. The first two studies came up with opposite results. One said that the chance for a boy was increased and the other found the chance for a boy was decreased.

These studies had various problems which limited their accuracy. However, this study of over 200 couples use highly accurate methods to determine the time of ovulation and had couples keep a diary of when  they had sex.

No surprise. The timing of sex had no influence on whether the couples had a boy or a girl. Need more proof?

Okay. One method that fertility doctors use to help couples get pregnant is called intrauterine insemination or IUI. With this method, sperm are placed directly into the uterus at the time of ovulation.

While pregnancy can happen, the success rate of intrauterine insemination depends on the blockage’s location on the blocked tube. When the blockage is closest to the ovary, the success rate of IUI is 11.7%. When the blockage is closest to the uterus, the success rate is as high as 38.1% (webmd).

Based on the sperm theory I talked about earlier, almost all of the babies born from IUI should be boys because the timing of the IUI is exactly on the day of ovulation and because the sperm are released closer to the egg than is even possible with intercourse.

This study looked at over 6300 babies that were born as a result of IUI. How many do you think we’re boys? 90%?  70%?

Here are the results.

Pretty close to 50% of the babies born were boys. In other words, timing and position did not improve the chance to conceive a boy. If changing position or timing didn’t work, is there anything you can do to increase your chances for a boy?

The only guaranteed method is with IVF in which you can test the embryos to see which are males or females. There is legitimate scientific evidence that changing a woman’s diet can help a little bit.

One word of warning. Don’t believe testimonials from websites or videos. Remember, about 50% of babies are going to be boys so any method designed  to increase the chances for a boy will work about 50% of the time.

Hi I’m Dr Akpobome. At Virtual Doctors, we give honest science-based tips that have helped people all over the world have their rainbow baby.  If you want to improve your odds for success, hit that subscribe button right and signup to our newsletter now.  It’s like having a fertility specialist in your phone. Also, do consult Virtual Doctors Fertility Expert. It is easy and affordable!