Q inre Pregnancy: Does Degree of Morning Sickness Predict Baby's Gender?

[minlokwat]

My wife and I are expecting our first child and upon revealing this to her family, my sister-in-law immediately proclaimed that it would be a girl.

How? When my wife described her first dealings with morning sickness and a low-grade constant feeling of nausea, my SIL who has one boy and one girl, declared that this indicates that my wife is carrying a female.

My SIL further provided that all of her friends who experienced morning sickness, nausea, etc. early on also had girls and so according to her, that clinches it. My mother-in-law agreed.

So knowing that I could google this phenomenon to get the more definitive scientific answer, I instead turn here for the less reliable but alway more amusing anecdotal evidence.

Incidentally, we’re fine either way with regard to gender; if we get a healthy baby in the end, whether it is a boy or a girl is wholly irrelevant.

[flodnak]

I had hyperemesis twice and I have two sons.

If this were true, a girl would’ve killed me.

[One_And_Only_Wanderers]

My wife is 37 weeks gone, at the 20 week scan we were told we are expecting a girl. My wife has had no morning sickness whatsoever.

[Stainz]

I had no morning sickness and gave birth to a baby girl.

Two friends, who were pregnant at the same time as I, had BRUTAL morning sickness, and gave birth to boys.

[USCDiver]

Well, I don’t have an amusing anecdote, but I did do a Google Scholar search for you and found this article (warning: PDF), which states:

And there is an intriguing link to fetal gender: female babies are more likely to produce qualmishness in pregnancy[sup]20[/sup]. Among all Swedish births between 1987 and 1995(over one million in all), there was an overall male:female ratio of 51.4:48.6. However, in mothers admitted to hospital with hyperemesis gravidarum in the first trimester, the ratio was reversed: 44.3:55.7. Severe pregnancy sickness was much more likely when a mother was carrying a girl.

The cited article is entitled:
Pike, I.L. (2000) The nutritional consequences of pregnancy sickness: a critique of a hypothesis. Hum. Nat. 11, 207–232

So the bottom line is female fetuses are more likely to induce pregnancy related sickness and/or hyperemesis gravidarum, but just because someone has morning sickness does not necessarily mean they’re more like to have a female child.

[whiterabbit]

My mother had one of each and as far as I know had little to no morning sickness with either of us.

[Skammer]

My wife’s OB/GYN told us that, in general, girls babies will make you sicker than boys. We had a boy two years ago and are expecting a girl in two months, and my wife was sicker this time. But every woman, and pregnancy, is different, so it’s not a very reliable predictor – most especially if it is you first child and have nothing to compare it to.

[Blanche]

@Skammer

My wife’s OB/GYN told us that, in general, girls babies will make you sicker than boys. We had a boy two years ago and are expecting a girl in two months, and my wife was sicker this time. But every woman, and pregnancy, is different, so it’s not a very reliable predictor – most especially if it is you first child and have nothing to compare it to.

I only had morning sickness with my latest pregnancy, and that was a boy. Previous two were a boy and a girl.

[Skammer]

@Blanche

I only had morning sickness with my latest pregnancy, and that was a boy. Previous two were a boy and a girl.

As I said, for individual women, it’s not a reliable predictor. And I’m just taking the word of our doctor, although USCDiver’s cite seems to support her.

[Missy2U]

I never had morning sickness, I had evening sickness. Had a boy.

[Cazzle]

My friend has three boys. The third caused constant, unrelenting and severe morning sickness for the entire duration of her pregnancy (this may be a contributing factor to him being the last). The poor woman hardly left the house for nine months because she was too ill. She said she had morning sickness with her earlier pregnancies, but nothing like with the youngest.

Congratulations! All the best to you! I hope the morning sickness disappears completely very soon - and I hope it’s a boy just so your SIL doesn’t get to brag because she guessed correctly on a 50/50 chance

[BiblioCat]

I have one child of each gender, and never had morning sickness with either pregnancy.
I had some morning nausea, depending on what foods I smelled early in the day, but never actually threw up.

[vix]

I had about six weeks of being nauseated 24/7 (no vomiting, but still really not fun) and I’m about to have a boy.

[Auntbeast]

WOOHOO!

I had no morning sickness (well, I threw up 6 times the total pregnancy) and have a girl.

If it’s worse with girls, egads, a boy will be a cakewalk, I may not even notice I’m pregnant!

There are a million old wives tales. With all of them, you have a 50-50 shot either way. Unless you get an amnio or have an exhibitionist baby, there is no sure fire way. Even sonograms have been wrong. We were never able to tell via sonogram what we were having and we had 3D sonograms starting from 9 weeks. I hope in 16 years she is as diligent about keeping her stuff hidden away.