Do you want to find out the gender of your unborn baby? Not all parents-to-be do want to know and often prefer to be surprised when baby is born.

In the days before ultrasound there was no way to find out for sure if you were having a boy or a girl…. or indeed if you were only having one baby! When there is a 50:50 chance of boy or girl it is easy for half of your family and friends to feel clever when they correctly predict a boy…. or a girl!

There are some very old wives tales which result in the 50:50 guess remaining just that – a guess.

Some of the fun and charming ways that you can try:

• The wedding ring test involves holding a wedding ring on a string over your pregnancy tummy. If you are carrying a girl the ring should spin but if it’s a boy the ring will swing back and forward.
• If you are clumsy during pregnancy you are having a boy but if you’re graceful it’s a girl.
• More morning sickness means a girl.
• A mellow happy mood means a baby boy will arrive but grumpiness portends a girl(!!!!!!)
• If you dream about a baby girl then you’re having a boy.
• Gorgeous glowing skin for a boy but blemishes and acne for a girl.
• Carry high for a girl and low for a boy.
• A high fetal heart rate for a girl but lower than 140 for a boy.
• Sweet cravings and your baby is a girl.

All nonsense but fun nonsense all the same.

If you do want to find out more scientifically then a blood test or an ultrasound can tell you for sure.

• the NIPT done after 10 weeks of pregnancy detects baby DNA floating around in mum’s blood stream.  It takes 2 weeks to get the result.
• the ultrasound done between 18 and 21 weeks takes a peek at what is between baby’s legs. USS is less accurate though. Baby might have their legs crossed so the genitals can’t be seen, or the sonographer sometimes (albeit rarely) gets it wrong.

Have a think about why you do or do not want to find out your baby’s sex before they are born. Is it about choosing a name? Bonding with the baby? Preparing a nursery and buying clothes? Having time to accept the sex if you had really preferred one sex over the other?

With my first pregnancy we found out at 14 weeks that we were having a girl. And that helped us to feel closer while my partner was living overseas. With my subsequent 2 pregnancies we didn’t find out until the baby was born.

I can highly recommend waiting for the surprise. Especially after 2 daughters when I just expected another girl and the midwife said “it’s a boy”.  I could not believe it until I’d checked for myself!!

Whether you decide to find out or not, boys and girls are both brilliant!

As an aside, have you ever wondered why blue is for boys and pink is for girls? Well it wasn’t always this way.

Until the 1920’s boys were dressed in the royal colours of red or pink and girls dressed in the colour of the Virgin Mary, blue. Proof that fashions constantly change and no one really knows why the red/blue flip happened 100 years ago.

This article has been written by Dr Liz Tompkins