Sex Selection

If you're interested in determining the gender of your soon-to-be child, you may have heard all the stories about the Chinese lunar calendar. The theory is that using this calendar, you can determine if you're having a boy or a girl.

How does it work? Well, the calendar was supposedly invented over 700 years ago by a Chinese scientist. The calendar then was buried in the tomb of a member of the royal family. Unearthed a few years ago, the calendar is supposed to help expectant parents learn the gender of their unborn child.

The calendar takes into account the mother's lunar age when conception occurred. The exact means for determining lunar age are debated, so most people just consider the mother's actual age in years. Next, the calendar takes into consideration the month of conception. From this, the gender of your child is predicted.

You'll find several sites online that will walk you through using the Chinese lunar calendar to predict your baby's gender. As most of these sites point out, though, the accuracy of the calendar is questionable. Truthfully, although fun, this calendar is not a reliable predictor of gender.

You have roughly a fifty percent chance of the Chinese lunar calendar being right, which means you also have a roughly fifty percent chance of it being wrong. In other words, you probably shouldn't put a whole lot of faith in the calendar. Don't decorate the baby's room or pick out clothing based solely on what it has to say.

Another calendar you may have heard about that helps determine the baby's gender is an ovulation calendar. In this case, you use a calendar to track your cycle for a few months before you conceive. Then, the theory is that if you want a girl, you should try to conceive approximately 3 to 2 1/2 days before you ovulate. If you want a boy, you should try to conceive 1 day before or one half day after you ovulate.

To use this approach, you'll need to track your cycle for several months in advance, plotting on a calendar major days so you know when you ovulate. You also can use an ovulation kit.

Does this calendar work? That's debatable. Some people have had great success using this approach to gender selection, while others haven't had the same sort of results. But it is another idea that you might find helpful if you are interested in trying to predict the gender of your child. Overall, it does seem to have a slightly higher success rate than the Chinese lunar calendar.

When is comes right down to it, using calendars, either the Chinese lunar calendar or an ovulation calendar, may not be your best approach to gender prediction. Both methods have major downsides. Once pregnant, the best non-invasive way to determine your baby's gender is to see what the sonogram shows. Sure, even sonograms can be misleading, but they still are better at predicting a baby's gender than the Chinese lunar calendar.