If you want a bouncing baby boy, it’s crunch time. Forget the traditional advice about making love while standing up, gorging on bananas or sleeping to the left of your partner. The answer, according to scientists, is simply to have breakfast every morning – preferably a bowl of cereal.
They say this is the first scientifically proven way of influencing the gender of a baby without the need for expensive medical treatment. They say women are more likely to have boys if they eat plenty and, crucially, have breakfast every day.
And if it is cereal, the odds are even more in a boy’s favor. If, on the other hand, you fancy having a daughter, a diet could be your best bet. Women who skip breakfast and eat less have a much slimmer chance of producing a son.
A study published in a respected science journal found that calorie intake at the time of conception significantly sways the odds of having a boy or girl.
Women who consume the most calories – typically around 2,250 a day – have a 56 percent chance of conceiving a boy. In contrast, those eating the least – around 1,750 calories a day – have a mere 45 percent chance of having a boy.
But that doesn’t mean those who want sons should treat themselves to lashings of butter and cream. None of the women in the study was obese. Researcher Dr. Fiona Mathews of Exeter University said the link between diet and babies could explain the small but consistent decline in the number of boys born in Britain and the U.S. over the last 40 years.
