Odds of having boys, girls, mixed gender family- old statistics thread by lindi

[Kiara]

This is just speculation from one person's doctor based on his personal experiences. Please don't read too much into it - while it's def. interesting and I'd love to have more observations like that from everyone's OBGYNs, we don't know how accurate it really is and why...we'd need blind side by side studies to really know for sure.

We've done tons of polls (not sure we ever did one on this site, but on IG we did several times) and people were all over the boards with BF and conception. I do think it sways pink because of biological reasons - lowers blood sugar and def. uses nutrients - but it's no magic bullet, that's for sure. Many BF have huge appetites and eat so much that they easily overcome any natural sway that BF offers and others find it impossible to lose weight while BF. Personally, my body has no qualms on shutting off breastmilk if I don't eat enough so I know for a fact that it's not always true that the nutrients go first to the breastmilk.

FWIW I conceived a boy while BF an 11 month old, and then a girl while BF a 23 month old!

Thank you for your answer! Im still a little bit curios about what they mean with the % though..You are 40% more likely to have a girl if you still bf when the baby is 1-2 yrs old? Or what they mean? You already have 50 % (ok 49%) of a girl and then if you bf 40% more chance? so 90% chance of a girl? haha I feel so stupid right now..

[atomic sagebrush]

Thank you for your answer! Im still a little bit curios about what they mean with the % though..You are 40% more likely to have a girl if you still bf when the baby is 1-2 yrs old? Or what they mean? You already have 50 % (ok 49%) of a girl and then if you bf 40% more chance? so 90% chance of a girl? haha I feel so stupid right now..

I believe he's saying that in HIS (limited and secondhand) experience 40% of people breastfeeding at 1-2 years old conceive girls while 60% conceive boys.

One thing to keep in mind (aside from the fact that this number is just one person's experience and speculation) is that most people don't breastfeed for 1-2 years. That in and of itself is something that can skew the numbers very, very much. Kellymom reports that only between 12-18% of women in the 2000's breastfed past 12 months, and I would suspect that they are a different demographic group than those women who either did not breastfeed or only bf for a short time. Might they be more disposed to conceive boys due to lifestyle factors?? (moms who do extended BF may tend to be a little more "crunchy", possibly eating a different sort of diet, and quite probably from different socioeconomic strata, because extended BF is a luxury that women who have to return to work early, don't have) May be pure coincidence and have nothing to do with BF.

In fact, I would even suspect that women who were able to get pg shortly after having a baby (the quoted 90% girls conceived soon after giving birth while BF) may not have been EBF and may have been supplementing with formula because most people who do BF a lot, can't conceive until at least 6 months.

All these things need to be corrected for which is why, while people's experience and observations are invaluable, no one should ever despair or read too much into any randomly quoted %. Even studies all too often do not correct for variables like that.

[Emily]

In fact, I would even suspect that women who were able to get pg shortly after having a baby (the quoted 90% girls conceived soon after giving birth while BF) may not have been EBF and may have been supplementing with formula because most people who do BF a lot, can't conceive until at least 6 months.

All these things need to be corrected for which is why, while people's experience and observations are invaluable, no one should ever despair or read too much into any randomly quoted %. Even studies all too often do not correct for variables like that.

HI there, I was having a chat to two mums with 12 - 18 months between children (one with two girls the other 2 boys) and they were both BF exclusively. They were told that their cases were extremely rare (but then they both go to the same playgroup so how rare is rare?). However, just wanted to put this out there - as Atomic says MOST people can't conceive but some do!

[Mrs_P]

Anyone know how were doing compared with the odds generally.

IE if 9% of moms go on to have four boys are these odds any lower from gender swaying or do i just increase my chances i won't be in the 9%. It does seems out of the moms in the position that i am in those who go on to have another child after three boys most of them get their girl however there are quite regularly the odd one that doesn't. Are we beating the odds at all as a group of just following them (1 out of 10 people still get a fourth boy regardless of how great their sway is). Is there any info on the percentage of sways etc that succeed

[atomic sagebrush]

Anyone know how were doing compared with the odds generally.

IE if 9% of moms go on to have four boys are these odds any lower from gender swaying or do i just increase my chances i won't be in the 9%. It does seems out of the moms in the position that i am in those who go on to have another child after three boys most of them get their girl however there are quite regularly the odd one that doesn't. Are we beating the odds at all as a group of just following them (1 out of 10 people still get a fourth boy regardless of how great their sway is). Is there any info on the percentage of sways etc that succeed

In the studies that have been done on diet, they DO correct for those things to some extent. Some studies on diet report 85% success rates from diet alone (I'm not totally sure that this is completely accurate, but it's DEF. better than the statistics as the population as a whole report.)

Here is the link with our stats.
http://genderdreaming.com/forum/ttc-...k-version.html

[atomic sagebrush]

Anyone know how were doing compared with the odds generally.

IE if 9% of moms go on to have four boys are these odds any lower from gender swaying or do i just increase my chances i won't be in the 9%. It does seems out of the moms in the position that i am in those who go on to have another child after three boys most of them get their girl however there are quite regularly the odd one that doesn't. Are we beating the odds at all as a group of just following them (1 out of 10 people still get a fourth boy regardless of how great their sway is). Is there any info on the percentage of sways etc that succeed

Just to update, the stats seem to be holding fairly steady at about 2/3 success, 1/3 opposites for girls (keeping in mind we include ALL sways and do not eliminate any). We've had a ton of success with HE Diet for boys and tho I don't have the numbers in front of me right now I would guess it's at least 80% - which is good for pink swayers to be aware of as well. Some of the blue sways that didn't work out were people who had been doing IG Diet or avoiding calcium for a long time before switching to HE.

[Rosie85]

I really hope I fall into the 73% of mixed families and get my girl! My husband seems to think the third is more likely to be a girl than a boy because families are more likely to be mixed than not. I say it's still the same chance its a boy.

[Mrs_P]

Rosie i definitely agree with your DH out of 5 or 6 of us with two boys when i had ds3 within a month of each other we all had a third and i was the only one who got a 3rd boy, every one else got their girl so the odds are in your favour anyway

[atomic sagebrush]

There's still the same chance it's a boy but at the same time, if someone was tossing a coin and it came up heads twice, at some point it's gonna come up tails.

[Rosie85]

Here is to hoping it lands tails! haha