Calories count for mums-to-be

10:05am Friday 25th April 2008

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CAN a woman's diet while trying for a baby really influence whether she has a boy or a girl?

According to new research, which claims to have uncovered the first direct evidence of a connection between food intake and the sex of a child, it can.

Experts believe women who scoff plenty of calories when trying to conceive are more likely to give birth to a son; eating breakfast cereals has also been "strongly associated" with having a boy.

The study, led by Exeter and Oxford University researchers, involved collecting nutritional data from 740 first-time pregnant women who did not know the sex of their child and worked out that women who ate around 2,200 calories a day were one-and-a-half times more likely to have a boy than those who ate less than 1,850 calories a day, and that women who ate cereal increased their chances of a son by 1.89 per cent.

Diets high in potassium, calcium and vitamins C, E and B12 were also linked to male births - tips which will be lapped up by women such as Alex Curran, who told a celebrity magazine this week her husband,Liverpool and England football star Steven Gerrard, longs for a son.

And the study's lead author Dr Fiona Mathews, from the University of Exeter, say: "If you are wanting to conceive a boy, the breakfast cereal finding is the main thing which popped out.

"Women who had boys also had a 300mg higher daily intake of potassium, so foods like bananas are good. Here we have evidence of a natural' mechanism which means women appear to be already controlling the sex of their offspring by their diet."

Artificial sex-selection mechanism, such as sperm-sorting or Preplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD), are outlawed in the UK. So if women want to influence the sex of their child, their best chance may be to analyse what they eat - and York mother-of-two Kildip James believes this is worth looking at.

After having Alex, now seven, the 39-year-old, from Clifton Green, hoped for a girl. She did her homework - and along came Jasmine, now four.

"Although the main thing was obviously that the baby was healthy, I did really want a daughter," says Kildip.

"I'd read a book by Dr Miriam Stoppard about how the time you conceive could help determine your baby's sex. But my mother also said that in India, where my family are from, women who wanted daughters ate a lot of citrus foods.

"So, at the time Jasmine was conceived, I used to eat a lot of oranges, limes and lemons, and lighter, mouthwatering meals, whereas with Alex I had eaten a lot of pasties, bread and potatoes.

"Maybe I would have had a girl regardless, but I certainly did as much as I could to influence it. A lot of it is in the hands of the gods, but I just think that, if you really want your child to be a particular sex, what have you got to lose?"