After I had my son, I desperately wanted a girl. When I got pregnant again, I was so convinced another XY was on the way that when the doctor delivered our daughter (XX, that is) and announced as much, I asked my husband: "Is he kidding?"

Had I only followed a strict meal plan of nuts and hard cheese, I presumably needn't have waited on pins and needles - at least according to a study by Maastricht University in The Netherlands. The authors say a mother's diet can determine whether her nursery ends up being swathed in pink or blue. So to boost the odds of having a girl, mothers should say, yes, to calcium and magnesium (think yogurt, spinach, tofu, almonds, cashews, beans, oatmeal, broccoli and oranges) and, no, to salt and potassium (anchovies, olives, bacon, salami, smoked salmon, shrimp, potatoes, processed meats, bread and pastries). Combine a strict diet with some carefully orchestrated sex — to increase the likelihood of having a girl, the researchers recommend avoiding sex immediately before and after ovulation — and apparently it can make all the difference.

News reports about the study, including one in the U.K.'s Daily Mail, have crowed about the nearly 80% success rate of the baby-girl diet. But the fine print — and common sense — call into question just how realistic this recipe for baby-making actually is. Of the 172 women who participated in the five-year study, only 21 ended up adhering to the stringent guidelines about what to eat (at least a pound of dairy each day) and precisely when — and when not — to rendezvous with their lovers. Of those 21, 16 ended up bearing daughters: voila, 77%.

The study further concluded that what the women ate was more important than when they had sex. “The results show that both diet and timing methods increase the probability of 
a girl — the impact of the diet being the most pronounced,” said a spokesman for the researchers.

But don't start stuffing the fridge with Stonyfield Farms just yet. “There is no physiological probability to any of this,” says Dr. Richard Paulson, director of the fertility program at the University of Southern California. “This is a great example of what we call non-science.”

This is probably not the first time you've heard about diet influencing gender. Researchers at the University of Exeter in England surveyed 740 first-time mothers and announced in 2008 that those who ate more calories — particularly those who ate breakfast cereal — had more sons. Nor is the advice new to avoid sex right before and after ovulation in order to birth a girl. When I was new to baby-making, a girlfriend told me about the Billings Method, a natural family planning method that involves timing of ovulation, which some rely upon to help select the baby's sex. Twice it let me down. (But a Nigerian study cited in Billings Method: Controlling Fertility Without Drugs or Devices reports that 310 couples who tried to conceive a boy were successful, while only four were not. Similarly, of 92 couples who tried to conceive a girl, only two failed. Daughters are apparently not so beloved in Nigeria.)

The timing factor was also famously espoused by Landrum Shettles, a Columbia professor who wrote How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby, which has sold over a million copies since coming out in 1970. Shettles postulated that male sperm are speedier swimmers, while female sperm are hardier and tend to outlast the guys. Hence, sex at ovulation should result in a boy, since male sperm should reach the elusive egg quicker, while sex a few days before or after ovulation should yield a daughter owing to the tenacity of the female sperm.

True or not, many have been persuaded. When Paulson addresses medical students and asks who believes it's possible to alter the probability of conceiving a boy versus a girl, half of would-be doctors raise their hands.

Here are nine other tried (but not likely true) ways to select the sex of your baby:

Go Blue:

• Have sex on the day of ovulation
• Avoid sex for several days before ovulation in order to concentrate the male's sperm count
• Don't spare the salt; eat meat and fish but steer clear of dairy
• Drink multiple cups of green tea daily

Pick Pink:

• Have sex several days before or after ovulation
• Have sex — lots of it — to decrease sperm count
• Stash a pink ribbon beneath your pillow
• Men, take a hot bath prior to intercourse because male sperm may be heat-averse
• Eat chocolate!

Have you tried any of these methods? Have they worked for you?

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PregnancyWeekly.com

Pregnancy is a time of wonder and amazement -- and for women with pre-existing diabetes, it is also a time for extremely careful (and sometimes baffling) disease management. How do you plan for this? What risks are involved? What can you expect? The August issue of Diabetes Forecast, the consumer magazine of the American Diabetes Association, features articles about pregnancy with pre-existing diabetes to help. With good care and planning women with either type 1 or type 2 diabetes can have safe pregnancies -- and healthy babies.

If you have diabetes and want to become pregnant, the first step should be visiting your doctor -- or several doctors. Depending on your diabetes management, you may want to see an endocrinologist in addition to your ob-gyn for a pre-conception visit. When choosing your doctors, keep in mind that you may have appointments as often as twice a week, so try to find a physician that you are comfortable with and whose office you are comfortable getting to.

While pre-existing diabetes automatically puts your pregnancy in the high-risk category, healthy habits can lower the chance of problems for both mother and child. First and foremost, keep your blood glucose in check -- in general, your A1C should be below 7 percent before you conceive. Your health care team may also want to discuss your weight, use of prenatal vitamins and other supplements, the status of any diabetes-related complications, and your current medications (such as ACE inhibitors or statins, which are not considered safe for use in pregnancy). Polycystic ovary syndrome is associated with type 2 diabetes, so for some women with diabetes, asking about fertility treatments may also be in order.

Once you become pregnant, your body's changes can make blood glucose levels go from one extreme to the other. "I spent the entire first trimester with my face buried in the fridge," says Kerri Sparling, 31, who has type 1 diabetes and whose daughter was born in April. "I was low all the time. It wasn't until probably the second trimester that the insulin resistance kicked in. Everything I ate, the insulin didn't cover it." As your body changes through your pregnancy, so will its reactions to the elements you normally use to manage your blood glucose, so be prepared to communicate with your health care team often and make any necessary adjustments.

From pre-conception planning to integrating diabetes management into your birth plan and facing post-partum depression, having a baby can seem like an overwhelming task for women with diabetes, and yet, many women with diabetes find they have the best glucose control of their life during pregnancy. "This was so, so important to me that I was willing to do whatever to make sure she came out right," says Sparling. "It's so worth it."

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PregnancyWeekly.com

Overweight and obese women are at greater risk of giving birth to a preterm baby compared with normal weight women, finds a study published online in the British Medical Journal.

The authors believe that overweight and obese women should have counseling before pregnancy so that they are aware of these risks and can try to modify their weight before pregnancy. They also stress the need for appropriate surveillance by health professionals during pregnancy.

Overweight and obesity is now the most common pregnancy complication in many developed countries and also some developing countries. For example, in the United Kingdom, 33% of pregnant women are overweight or obese. In India, 26% of pregnant women are overweight and a further 8% are obese, while in China, 16% are overweight or obese.

Preterm birth and low birth weight are the leading causes of infant death and illness throughout childhood. However, there is still uncertainty about the impact of a mother's weight on both preterm birth and low birth weight.

So a team of researchers in Canada analyzed the results of 84 studies to assess the effect of maternal weight on preterm birth (before 37 weeks) and low birth weight (below 2500g) in singleton pregnancies in both developed and developing countries.

They found that the overall risk of preterm birth before 37 weeks was not significantly different among overweight or obese women compared with normal weight women.

However, there was a 30% increased risk of induced preterm birth before 37 weeks among overweight or obese women after accounting for publication bias, which is the tendency for studies to be published only if their results are positive. The heavier the woman, the higher the risk of induced preterm birth before 37 weeks, with very obese women at 70% greater risk than normal weight women.

Overweight or obese women also had a higher risk of early preterm birth (before 32 or 33 weeks). Again, the heavier the woman, the higher the risk of early preterm birth, with very obese women at 82% greater risk than normal weight women.

Although overweight or obese women had a lower risk of delivering a low birth weight baby than normal weight women, especially in developing countries, this effect disappeared after publication bias was taken into account. "Clinicians need to be aware that maternal overweight or obesity is not protective against low birth weight and consider surveillance when indicated," warn the authors.

"Ideally, overweight or obese women should have pregnancy counseling so that they are informed of their perinatal risks and can try to optimize their weight before pregnancy," they conclude.

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PregnancyWeekly.com

Any weight gain during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy -- or more than a pound a week between weeks 14 and 36 -- raise the odds your child will show signs of heart disease by age 9.

The findings come from the U.K. Avon study, which is following the health of nearly 14,000 children born from April 1991 through December 1992. The study, by University of Bristol researcher Abigail Fraser, PhD, and colleagues, focuses on more than 8,500 mother/child pairs for whom detailed data were available.

Women who were overweight before becoming pregnant were more likely to have overweight or obese children.

But regardless of a woman's pre-pregnancy weight, weight gain during pregnancy affected the child's weight -- and at age 9, the child's risk of having high body fat, low levels of good HDL cholesterol, a big waistline, high blood pressure, and other risk factors for heart disease.

Children's heart risk increased with any weight gain during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy, and with any weight gain over 1.1 pounds per week during weeks 14 to 36 of pregnancy. The more weight a woman gained during these times, the higher her child's heart risk.

Weight gain after week 36 of gestation was not linked to heart risk in a woman's offspring.

What's going on? Fraser and colleagues suggest that the reason why these kids already have a high heart risk by 9 years of age is their fat mass. But exactly why children tend to be fat if their mothers gain too much weight during pregnancy isn't clear.

One thing is clear, comments obstetrician/gynecologist Jennifer Wu, MD, of New York's Lenox Hill Hospital.

"In order to help ensure healthier futures for their children, women considering childbearing should try to achieve ideal body weight pre-pregnancy and to adhere to recommended weight-gain guidelines," Wu says in a statement released by the Lenox Hill press office. Wu was not involved in the Fraser study.

The Fraser study appears in the June 15 issue of Circulation, a journal of the American Heart Association.

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PregnancyWeekly.com

Women who use the antidepressant bupropion during early pregnancy may have an increased risk of having a baby with a particular type of heart defect, a new study suggests.

Researchers caution that it is not clear whether the medication, marketed as Wellbutrin, is the cause. And even if it is, they say, the absolute risk of the heart defect would be small -- affecting just 2 out of every 1,000 infants born to women who used bupropion during the first trimester.

But the findings, published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, do add to questions about the risks of using antidepressants during early pregnancy.

Some studies have already linked other antidepressants -- including some of the commonly used selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) -- to higher-than-average, though small, risks of certain birth defects.

A study last year, for example, found that among nearly half a million Danish children born between 1996 and 2003, the risk of heart defects was elevated among those whose mothers had used SSRIs such as fluoxetine (Prozac), sertraline (Zoloft) and citalopram (Celexa) during early pregnancy.

In this latest study, researchers found that among more than 12,700 U.S. infants born between 1997 and 2004, those whose mothers used bupropion during early pregnancy had more than double the risk of heart defects known as left outflow tract defects, compared with infants whose mothers had not used the drug.

Left outflow defects affect the flow of blood from the heart's left chambers to the rest of the body. In this study, the most common type of this defect was coarctation of the aorta -- a narrowing in the body's main artery that, in children, typically requires surgical repair.

The findings do not mean, however, that depressed women on bupropion should stop taking it if they are planning a pregnancy, according to the researchers.

"I think it's important that women understand that they should not just stop taking their medication," said Dr. Jennita Reefhuis, a senior epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and one of the researchers on the study.

Instead, she told Reuters Health, women should talk with their doctors, ideally when they are planning a pregnancy rather than after they conceive.

The potential risk of birth defects from using antidepressants must be weighed against the risks of a woman stopping her current depression therapy, Reefhuis said.

"This study needs to be replicated before we can say anything conclusive," Reefhuis said, noting that the findings point to an association between bupropion and left outflow defects, but cannot by itself prove cause-and-effect.

If the association is causal, she said, the absolute risk to any one woman would be small. For every 1,000 births, there are an estimated 0.8 cases of left outflow tract heart defects; based on the current findings, that rate would be 2 per 1,000 among women who use bupropion in the first trimester.

Reefhuis also pointed out that with any pregnancy, the overall risk of having a baby with some form of birth defect is 3 percent.

Guidelines released last year by the American Psychiatric Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists state that psychotherapy may be an effective alternative to antidepressants for pregnant women with mild to moderate depression.

However, the guidelines say, women with a history of more severe depression, or other major psychiatric disorders, may need to continue with their medication.

Bupropion is also prescribed for smoking cessation, under the brand-name Zyban. In the case of smoking cessation, Reefhuis said, it may be easier for women to find an effective alternative to the drug.

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PregnancyWeekly.com

Dozens of human embryos with three parents have been created by British scientists, ushering in an era of designer babies.

The embryos - which effectively have two mothers and one father - have been genetically engineered to be free from incurable muscle, brain, heart and digestive illnesses, some of which kill within hours of being born.

The Newcastle University researchers say that within as little as three years, it could allow women whose families are blighted by disease the chance of bringing a healthy child into the world.

But critics say the breakthrough is a step on the slippery slope towards human cloning and erodes the sanctity of human life.

The cutting-edge research centers around mitochondria - sausage-shaped powerhouses inside cells which turn food into energy to be used by the brain and body.

Each mitochondrion has is own DNA which gives instructions on how to build and operate the powerpack, or battery, and is passed down from mother to child.

Serious defects in this DNA affect one in 6,500 babies and cause around 50 genetic diseases, some of which kill in infancy.

With no cure for the conditions, which include some forms of diabetes, blindness and heart problems, women carrying diseased mitochondria often face the heartbreaking choice of whether it would be kinder to remain childless.

The scientists have found a way of swapping the diseased DNA with healthy genetic material, creating embryos free of mitochondrial disease.

The 'transplant' technique, which is described in the prestigious journal Nature, begins by using IVF techniques to fertilize an egg from a healthy donor.

When the resulting embryo is just a few hours old, the 'pronuclei', or nuclear DNA from the sperm and egg are removed, leaving the healthy mitochondria behind.

The would-be mother's egg is then fertilized with her partner's sperm and the pronuclei removed and popped into the donor egg.

This creates an egg where the genetic material comes overwhelmingly from the prospective parents and the mitochondria are healthy.

If the method is successful, the disease should be eradicated from future generations of the family.

Professor Alison Murdoch, head of the Newcastle Fertility Centre, whose patients donated eggs for the study, said: 'It would be hype to say we are going to get rid of mitochondrial disease but I think it's realistic to say you could get rid of it in an individual family.'

Eighty embryos were created in the Newcastle labs, each effectively with three parents - two mothers and a father.

A fourth parent - the man whose sperm was used to fertilize the donor egg - was involved, but none of his DNA was passed on.

Some of the embryos lived for six days, before they were destroyed to comply with fertility laws, which also forbid such embryos from being implanted in a woman.

But updated fertility laws which came into effect last year leave the door open for the legislation to be amended, allowing the technique women to give birth to disease-free babies.

Lead researcher Professor Doug Turnbull said that if this happened, the first babies could be born in as little as three years.

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PregnancyWeekly.com

Dozens of human embryos with three parents have been created by British scientists, ushering in an era of designer babies.

The embryos - which effectively have two mothers and one father - have been genetically engineered to be free from incurable muscle, brain, heart and digestive illnesses, some of which kill within hours of being born.

The Newcastle University researchers say that within as little as three years, it could allow women whose families are blighted by disease the chance of bringing a healthy child into the world.

But critics say the breakthrough is a step on the slippery slope towards human cloning and erodes the sanctity of human life.

The cutting-edge research centers around mitochondria - sausage-shaped powerhouses inside cells which turn food into energy to be used by the brain and body.

Each mitochondrion has is own DNA which gives instructions on how to build and operate the powerpack, or battery, and is passed down from mother to child.

Serious defects in this DNA affect one in 6,500 babies and cause around 50 genetic diseases, some of which kill in infancy.

With no cure for the conditions, which include some forms of diabetes, blindness and heart problems, women carrying diseased mitochondria often face the heartbreaking choice of whether it would be kinder to remain childless.

The scientists have found a way of swapping the diseased DNA with healthy genetic material, creating embryos free of mitochondrial disease.

The 'transplant' technique, which is described in the prestigious journal Nature, begins by using IVF techniques to fertilize an egg from a healthy donor.

When the resulting embryo is just a few hours old, the 'pronuclei', or nuclear DNA from the sperm and egg are removed, leaving the healthy mitochondria behind.

The would-be mother's egg is then fertilized with her partner's sperm and the pronuclei removed and popped into the donor egg.

This creates an egg where the genetic material comes overwhelmingly from the prospective parents and the mitochondria are healthy.

If the method is successful, the disease should be eradicated from future generations of the family.

Professor Alison Murdoch, head of the Newcastle Fertility Centre, whose patients donated eggs for the study, said: 'It would be hype to say we are going to get rid of mitochondrial disease but I think it's realistic to say you could get rid of it in an individual family.'

Eighty embryos were created in the Newcastle labs, each effectively with three parents - two mothers and a father.

A fourth parent - the man whose sperm was used to fertilize the donor egg - was involved, but none of his DNA was passed on.

Some of the embryos lived for six days, before they were destroyed to comply with fertility laws, which also forbid such embryos from being implanted in a woman.

But updated fertility laws which came into effect last year leave the door open for the legislation to be amended, allowing the technique women to give birth to disease-free babies.

Lead researcher Professor Doug Turnbull said that if this happened, the first babies could be born in as little as three years.

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PregnancyWeekly.com

Obese pregnant women are at increased risk of having a baby with a congenital heart defect, a new study finds.

On average, obesity is associated with a 15 percent increased risk of having a baby with a heart defect. But the risk rises with the level of obesity. Compared to normal-weight women, the risk is 11 percent higher in moderately obese women and 33 percent higher in morbidly obese women.

In general, women who were overweight but not obese had no increased risk, said the researchers at the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the New York State Department of Health.

"The trend is unmistakable: the more obese a woman is, the more likely she is to have had a child with a heart defect," study first author Dr. James L. Mills, of the NICHD's Division of Epidemiology, Statistics and Prevention Research, said in a news release.

For this study, researchers compared the records of mothers of 7,392 children born with major heart defects and more than 56,000 mothers of infants born without birth defects. Because the study looked at the records of infants after they were born, it doesn't conclusively prove that obese women who lose weight before becoming pregnant will reduce their risk of having a baby with a heart defect, the researchers noted.

However, "if a woman is obese, it makes sense for her to try to lose weight before becoming pregnant," Mills said. "Not only will weight loss improve her own health and that of her infant, it is likely to have the added benefit of reducing the infant's risk for heart defects."

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PregnancyWeekly.com

ParentingWeekly is now on Facebook! If you enjoy learning about the latest pregnancy and parenting issues on the PWBlog, you can become a fan of ParentingWeekly on Facebook to receive regular updates on your Facebook homepage.

On our new Facebook profile you can also learn more about a broad range of topics including preconception, pregnancy, parenting and grandparenting. Fathers, mothers and grandparents can all find something of interest and it's as simple as logging into the most popular social network on the web. Click here to become a fan (must be logged in to Facebook)!

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PregnancyWeekly.com

ParentingWeekly is now on Facebook! If you enjoy learning about the latest pregnancy and parenting issues on the PWBlog, you can become a fan of ParentingWeekly on Facebook to receive regular updates on your Facebook homepage.

On our new Facebook profile you can also learn more about a broad range of topics including preconception, pregnancy, parenting and grandparenting. Fathers, mothers and grandparents can all find something of interest and it's as simple as logging into the most popular social network on the web. Click here to become a fan (must be logged in to Facebook)!

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PregnancyWeekly.com