Something in the water?

[Pangea]

I live in a town on the outskirts of a city. When I was pregnant with DS2 I used to attend a midwife clinic in the town for my check ups. When I was there the midwives made a few comments about how everyone coming in to them was pregnant with a boy and they were only rarely seeing anyone pregnant with a girl.

After I had him, I went to a breastfeeding support group and there were only two girls and about 12 boys. We used to joke about it, and the nurse running the group said they weren't seeing many girls being born lately.

DS2 is 15 months now, and I've just joined a local toddler group, and again, there are no girls there, just boys.

What could be causing this? I don't think it's nationwide, just this town. I'm a bit worried about my chances of conceiving a girl here!

[rainbowflower]

well, it could be a fluke... really we don't know why! same thing happened around the time my DS was born too - loads of local ladies all had boys and there are very few girls in his groups

[atomic sagebrush]

http://genderdreaming.com/forum/gend...pink-blue.html (the "water" essay - it answers part of your q)

I think there are a lot of likelier explanations than "it's something in the water" - esp. given that many people no longer even DRINK tap water!

[Pangea]

Lol I'm not actually suggesting that it's the water, it's just a phrase. I've never heard anyone say it and mean it to be taken literally.

But I am curious as to why there are fluctuations like this, is it just chance? Is it common for this to happen, to get waves of babies of a particular gender?

[rainbowflower]

lol
who knows... perhaps it's ions afterall!

[atomic sagebrush]

Lol I'm not actually suggesting that it's the water, it's just a phrase. I've never heard anyone say it and mean it to be taken literally.

But I am curious as to why there are fluctuations like this, is it just chance? Is it common for this to happen, to get waves of babies of a particular gender?

Haha, I've actually known of SEVERAL people quite convinced that their drinking water made all the difference in the world, I apologize for jumping to a conclusion.

It is partly just luck (I would say mostly), partly socioeconomic status/lifestyle as well because there does seem to be some connection between socioeconomic status and gender of child conceived. Go over one town and you would see a lot of girl families and wonder about that too. I suspect that the type of people who join breastfeeding support groups, toddler play groups, and midwife clinics (and I do not mean this to be offensive in any way to anyone, just a general observation with a billion exceptions I'm sure) may be somewhat more likely to be boy moms to begin with - I have noticed that a lot of the crunchy mamas seem to have more sons.

[Pangea]

Thanks, I didn't think of that. That probably does influence it.
I was hoping that it was cyclical and that by the time I'm pregnant again there would be a wave of girls!

[atomic sagebrush]

I hope so too Pangaea!

the nice thing is, I know that for many of us, we feel a lot of despair when we see a lot of our DG being born because we think that we have no chance (if we were all flipping coins, eventually SOMEBODY has to start flipping tails if everyone else got heads) but with gender, it doesn't seem to work that way. There really CAN be "outbreaks" of mostly boys or mostly girls!

[Hobbermittens]

WHen I was pregnant with DD2, EVERYONE had girls. Seriously, it was ridiculous! Out of all the people pregnant at the same time as me (there were many) only 2 people had boys, and the rest of us all had girls. I don't know what causes it!

[auroara78]

At my old retail job, 3 out of 4 of us pregnant at the same time all were having boys, and the only one to have a girl was a pharmacist who floated (meaning she only worked at our store once every two weeks, if that). We used to joke that our store could only produce boys!