Mother Knows Best

Mother Knows Best

I've always liked that saying. It turns out its true, at least according to statistics.
Another popular saying is to relay on a women's intuition.

After a friend recently became pregnant we started to hear all the opinions of many people telling her what sex the baby was going to be.

Since I reread one of my favourite books FREAKONOMICS recently, I decided I'd do a little investigation of my own to see what is an Old Wives' Tale and what wasn't. And by the way, if you haven't read Freakonomics, its great, I highly recommend it. Authors kindly pay me for my endorsement. HA!

As you know there is always  a 50% chance of being right, since a baby can only be a boy or girl, although I guess technically a few have both sex organs, but let's not complicate things.

Here's what I found.

The way the baby is held in the belly high or low.
Carrying low its a boy, carrying high its a girl.

Bull. A number of factors play into how the baby carries, but there is no data that suggests this is true.

Urine colour.
Bright yellow means a boy. Dull or clear is a boy.

Bull. But you should probably be drinking a lot of water if its dark.

Carrying extra weight.
If carrying extra weight it must be a boy.

Bull. Studies show that it can still be a girl, weight gain has nothing to do with sex of the baby.

Wedding ring over belly.
Put your wedding ring on a string or a lock of hair throw it. Swing it and if it moves back and forth, its a boy and circular motion its a girl.

I smelt bull before I even looked at the stats. Not true, this isn't Harry Potter land. Bull.

More hair and growing fast especially on legs.
Since boys will have more male hormones perhaps the male hormones will cause the mother to grow more hair.

No its BS.

Morning sickness.
Really consistant morning sickness means its a girl. Little or only in the 1st trimester means a boy.

Nope not true. BS.

Severe Acne poor skin.
If you have really bad skin, and lots of oil its a girl. No bad skin means a boy.

Nope its Bull.

Cold feet.
If you have cold feet you are having a boy. Normal is a girl.

Nope, its BS.

Have the mother guess!
As I mentioned previously mother knows best.

According to statistics, women who guessed, were 71% right when asked what sex their child was.
Since anyone can guess 50% of the time, 71% is pretty good.

As I one article I read pointed out, if one person gets the guess right, then they think based on what they said must be true and then start telling people that old wives's tale and spread it across the land. The other part of that fact is the other person that was wrong, only lost a 50% 50% chance. It can only be heads or tales.
So based on this information the only thing I can tell is that women guessing had a better than 50% chance.

The moral of the story, next time I play poker I'm asking my wife which cards to go with ;-)


My Japanese blog.
Also somewhat incoherent like this blog, but more weird stuff happened to me in Japan.
Take a gander at it at this link.

http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/