Can you re­al­ly choose the sex of your ba­by?

For as long as they've been mak­ing ba­bies, women have been ex­chang­ing ideas about how to in­crease their chances of hav­ing ei­ther a boy or a girl. Sex se­lec­tion is the abil­i­ty to choose a girl or a boy be­fore you get preg­nant by us­ing some method to as­sist you in chang­ing the odds to­wards the sex you se­lect. To­day, de­pend­ing on the method of sex se­lec­tion you choose, the abil­i­ty to have that girl or boy of your dreams is close to 100 per cent.

Mi­croSort

The Mi­croSort process sorts sperm by male and fe­male by a process that mea­sures dif­fer­ences in the DNA. Then us­ing an in­trauter­ine in­sem­i­na­tion (IUI) or in vit­ro fer­til­i­sa­tion (IVF) the en­riched sam­ple of sperm is used to help you con­ceive. About 92 per cent of those at­tempt­ing for a girl do con­ceive a girl, while the suc­cess rates for sex se­lec­tion and boys us­ing Mi­croSort is low­er, at 81 per cent.

Preim­plan­ta­tion Ge­net­ic Di­ag­no­sis (PGD)

This is the most ef­fec­tive tech­nique in sex se­lec­tion. With near­ly 100 per cent ac­cu­ra­cy and the abil­i­ty to se­lect not on­ly sex but a healthy em­bryo, makes it very pop­u­lar. This is a cost­ly and in­ten­sive method of sex se­lec­tion that us­es in vit­ro fer­til­i­sa­tion and does biop­sies on the em­bryos be­fore they are re­turned to the uterus.

Shet­tles Method

The Shet­tles Method is based on the fact that male and fe­male sperm trav­el and sur­vive in the re­pro­duc­tive tract for vary­ing amounts of time. So you time in­ter­course about 12 hours pri­or to ovu­la­tion for a boy, and sev­er­al days be­fore ovu­la­tion for a girl.

Er­ic­s­son Al­bu­min Method

With Er­ic­s­son, the sperm is fil­tered through al­bu­min and then an in­trauter­ine in­sem­i­na­tion (IUI) is done with the sam­ple. While the sam­ple doesn't pro­vide you with more of one par­tic­u­lar sex, like a Mi­croSort sam­ple, it does help se­lect the sex of the ba­by.

Oth­er meth­ods of sex se­lec­tion

There are oth­er meth­ods of sex se­lec­tion, in­clud­ing pre-preg­nan­cy di­ets to al­ter the pH bal­ance of your body, tim­ing meth­ods that dif­fer from the Shet­tles Method, sup­ple­ments, and po­si­tion­ing. And then there are the old wives' tales that, who knows, may work in your favour.

The folk­lore

You're more like­ly to con­ceive a boy if...

• you reach or­gasm be­fore your part­ner, as this re­leas­es an al­ka­line flu­id, thought to be more male-sperm friend­ly than the vagi­na's nat­ur­al acid­i­ty.

• you have deep pen­e­tra­tion dur­ing sex, such as from be­hind (dog­gie-style).

• your part­ner has a high sperm count. This is be­cause male sperm are not as strong as fe­male sperm, and so the high­er the count, the more chance there is of a male sperm reach­ing the egg first.

• you avoid sex for a week be­fore ovu­la­tion and then on­ly have sex once on ovu­la­tion day, to keep the sperm count high.

• your part­ner sug­gest­ed the love-mak­ing.

• you make love at night.

• you make love on odd days of the month.

• your part­ner keeps his gen­i­tals cool by wear­ing box­er shorts and loose-fit­ting trousers.

• you eat salty food, plen­ty of meat, fish, white flour, pas­ta, fresh fruit, cer­tain veg­eta­bles, but avoid milk and dairy prod­ucts, such as yo­gurt and cheese, nuts, choco­late, shell­fish and whole­meal bread.

You're more like­ly to con­ceive a girl if...

• your part­ner reach­es or­gasm be­fore you do.

• you have sex fre­quent­ly to low­er your part­ner's sperm count, and so in­crease the chances of the fe­male sperm reach­ing the egg first.

• you keep pen­e­tra­tion shal­low.

• you stop hav­ing un­pro­tect­ed sex four to five days be­fore ovu­la­tion, to min­imise the chances of the male sperm reach­ing the egg first.

• your part­ner keeps his gen­i­tals warm by wear­ing close-fit­ting un­der­wear and tight trousers (al­though this isn't like­ly to do his gen­er­al fer­til­i­ty any good!).

• you sug­gest­ed the love-mak­ing.

• you make love in the af­ter­noon.

• you make love on even days of the month.

• you put a wood­en spoon un­der your bed and a pink rib­bon un­der your pil­low.

• you drink plen­ty of milk and eat dairy prod­ucts such as cheese and yo­gurt, un­salt­ed foods, rice, pas­ta, cer­tain veg­eta­bles, min­er­al wa­ter, lim­it­ed amounts of meat and pota­toes, but avoid salt and any salty foods, wine and beer, fresh fruit, spinach, toma­toes and mush­rooms, choco­late, cof­fee and tea.