Is it possible to choose the sex of a future child?

The desire to have a child of a certain gender is as old as the world. There are a great many pieces of advice, signs and pseudo-scientific methods that supposedly allow not only to predict, but also to determine the gender of the future child.

It should be said, however, that the sex ratio is regulated automatically by nature. For example, it is reliably known that before the war, the number of boys born is greater than the number of girls. And, conversely, during the period of economic prosperity of the country, more girls are born than boys.

There is still no clear explanation for this fact. Although many scientists have been studying this problem for a long time. And scientists are concerned about this issue for a reason. It is no secret that some diseases are transmitted only to boys or only to girls. For example, hemophilia is transmitted from mothers to sons, while daughters do not get sick. And it has long been known that boys are more vulnerable than girls, so they die more often in utero and during the neonatal period.

Now let's remember genetics: let's define what heredity is. Heredity is the property of living organisms to pass on their characteristics to their offspring. And although each individual has his own characteristics inherent only to him (for example, the pattern of lines on the fingers), nevertheless, the general characteristics of the species do not change and remain the same over many generations. In particular, man as a separate species - Homo sapiens - has existed (according to various sources) from 40 thousand to several million years.

The basis of hereditary information is the set of chromosomes located in the cell nucleus. Another, less significant part of the information is contained in the mitochondria in the form of mitochondrial DNA. Moreover, mitochondrial DNA is mostly transmitted from the mother, since the egg contains many more mitochondria than the sperm, due to the fact that it is several thousand times larger.

The chromosomes found in the egg and sperm are also made of DNA. DNA is deoxyribonucleic acid. It consists of two chains twisted around each other in a spiral. Each chain is made up of individual nucleotides consisting of deoxyribose (sugar), a phosphate residue, and a nitrogenous base. There are only four such nucleotides - adenine (A), guanine (G), thymine (T), and cytosine (C).

They are always paired, with thymine always opposite adenine, and guanine always opposite cytosine.

Approximately 1000 base pairs (A - T: C - G) in different combinations make up one gene. At the same time, one cell contains approximately 1 million genes. The totality of all genes makes up the genotype of an organism.

Thanks to the genotype, the organism inherits the entire complex of hereditary data. But the external environment (this means everything: climate, social environment, nutrition, etc.) in one way or another influences the formation of the developing organism. Therefore, the complex of genotype and external influences is called phenotype and is a real expression of the genotype in each individual person.

Each species on Earth has a strictly defined number of chromosomes: mice have 40, chimpanzees have 48, fruit flies have 8, and humans have 46. But two chromosomes are always sex chromosomes, that is, they are responsible for the sex of a given individual.

Thus, a person has 44 chromosomes that are autosomes, and 2 are sex chromosomes. A child receives half of the chromosomes from the mother, and the other half from the father. That is, the sperm and egg contain 23 chromosomes. I will not "load" you with scientific terms and theories, but each of these sets contains one sex chromosome. This is either the X chromosome, responsible for the development of female characteristics, or the Y chromosome, responsible for the development of male characteristics. And when the egg, which always carries only the X chromosome, merges with the sperm carrying the X chromosome, the future child is a girl. If the egg "gets" a sperm carrying the Y chromosome, the result is a boy.

Spermatozoa carrying the Y chromosome are slightly smaller in size and much "nimbler" than those carrying the X chromosome. But they are less resilient and therefore more often die on the way to the fallopian tube. Therefore, even if such a sperm "reaches" the tube first, but does not "find" an egg there that has not yet had time to "descend", it will die. But spermatozoa carrying the X chromosome are more viable and can "live" longer in the fallopian tube, "waiting" for ovulation.

This is the basis of one of the methods for planning the sex of the future child. By measuring your basal temperature, you need to determine the date of your next ovulation (if you do not feel it yourself). If your periods are regular, this day will be constant (for example, the 14th day from the first day of your period). Based on this, you can calculate: if you want a girl, then your last sexual intercourse should be no later than 2-3 days before ovulation. If you want a boy, then abstain for a week, and on the day of ovulation or one day before it, you can conceive. In this case, you need to meet one condition - in both cases, you should have only one sexual intercourse. Then this method will work. By the way, statistics (which know everything) indicate that this method is effective in 70-80% of cases.

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