This week expectant mom Heidi Klum told E! that she won’t be telling hubbie Seal if they are having a boy or a girl. The baby, due this fall, will the couple’s third, and Heidi’s fourth.

Heidi says that Seal doesn’t want to know, and so she’s being careful not to tell anyone just in case the news gets back to him. They have two boys together, and Seal is the adoptive father to Heidi’s daughter from her first marriage.

Heidi says that she’s hoping for a girl, and while the couple haven’t revealed when they are due, gossip columnists are estimating she’s at about four months and, oooh, excitement, she’ll soon be able to find out by ultrasound.

From a non-scientific poll of couples I know, Seal isn’t that unusual. A lot of dads were happy to be surprised, and most moms wanted to know. Perhaps moms want to plan the nursery colors and start buying pink or blue onesies, and dads figure that it’s not all that important until they are called on to instruct catching fly balls or inspect potential prom dates?  Stereotyping is alive and well over here.

Around mid-pregnancy, lots of men can’t wait to find out the gender of the baby. But at only half-way through, others see the birth of the baby as an event far out into the future and are at ease with not knowing right now. But wait until seven months and dad will probably start speculating on whether he’ll be watching football with his offspring or being begged for money to go to the mall with. Oops, stereotyping again.

I wanted to know what I was having, my husband didn’t want to know. I agreed I wouldn’t tell him. He went out of the room during the critical point of the ultrasound and the technician stage-whispered “I saw a PENIS” then we let him back in. Then I slipped in the parking lot by referring to the baby as “him” and the cat was out of the bag. Whoops.

It’s a hard secret to keep, so if your husband really doesn’t want to know, you might want to consider not finding out yourself, or you’d better be good at keeping things to yourself.

A PhD candidate at New Zealand’s Canterbury University has found that girls whose fathers are absent tend to enter puberty earlier than their counterparts whose fathers are part of the family unit.

The study looked at pairs of sisters separated in age by at least two years, neither of whom had experienced their first period before the change (or lack thereof) in the father’s presence. There were 68 pairs from father-absent homes and 93 from homes where the father was present. By looking at pairs of sisters, the researcher used a unique in-family design to provide some measure of control against genetic and socio-economic factors.

In addition to the finding that the girls from father-absent homes tended to have their first period earlier, the study also found that younger siblings in father-absent homes had their first period even earlier than their older sisters. This was not the case in father-present homes, possibly indicating a relationship between the amount of time a girl goes fatherless and the timing of her first period.

Source: Absent fathers can cause early puberty in girls: study via The New Zealand Herald

Trying for a baby boy? While what only really matters is a healthy baby of either gender, many moms would admit they have a slight preference for one gender over the other, and perhaps wonder how to have a baby boy?

I have a son, and if I could pick the gender of my next baby, I’d have a girl, to have one of each. But I want a baby boy too, and would adore another son equally of course!

Do you want to know how to conceive a baby boy? If you are thinking “how can I have a baby boy” here’s a rundown of scientifically based methods and advice that might increase your chances of having a boy.

The Baby Boy Diet

Much in the news lately: moms who eat high calorie diets around the time of conception are slightly more likely to have a baby boy. Moms who eat more breakfast cereals are also more likely to have sons. so does eating the baby boy diet work?

Brit thinks: No. Don’t risk skimping on vital nutrients. Just eat healthily.

Timing Intercourse to Have a Baby Boy

Biology 101: the sex of a baby is totally decided by sperm. Either a “male” or a “female” sperm gets to the egg first, resulting in a baby boy or baby girl. Male sperm are faster swimmers, but don’t live as long as female sperm. Female sperm are slower but tougher and more persistent.So there are various methods of timing intercourse relative to ovulation that increase the odds of having a boy. To have a boy, having intercourse as close as possible to ovulation gives the faster male sperm the best chance to get to the egg first. Here’s a closer look at this method including how to determine when you are ovulating . So does timing sex to have a baby boy work?

Brit thinks: scientific evidence supports this one and success rates are reportedly around 70%. So try this one. but the planning seems to take the fun out of babymaking somewhat?

The Loose Underpants Method

As female sperm are tougher, they survive better in hostile environments. What’s hostile for sperm? They don’t like being too hot, for example in hot baths, or tight boxer shorts. Activities your man does may also reduce the number of male sperm. Professional cyclists, scuba divers and jet fighter pilots father significantly more daughters than average.So loose underpants for him, avoid saunas or hot baths for a few days before trying to conceive, and if he is a cyclist and you want a boy, suggest he cuts down on the time he spends in the saddle.More evidence? My dad is a serious cyclist and I’m one of two girls. Another cyclist friend has three daughters.

Brit thinks: temporary lifestyle changes might be worth trying. If your man has a sperm-unfriendly profession or hobby, why not go on a relaxing vacation for a few days, give his male sperm a chance to regroup and then try to conceive?

Watch What Your Man Drinks, and Smokes

Smoking and drinking are both well known to reduce sperm counts, and just like the job or hobby your man does reduces the number of male sperm more than female sperm, drinking or smoking will reduce the number of male sperm in relation to the number of hardier female sperm. So heavy drinkers or smokers may be less likely to have boys.

Brit thinks: drinking too much or smoking is bad for you anyway. Dads-to-be should certainly be quitting smoking, and reducing the amount of alcohol drunk is a healthy choice. So these lifestyle choices are ones dads-to-be should certainly consider whether or not they want a boy.

Ovulation Calculator

Want to know when you’ll be ovulating next?

Eight-year old girls should still be playing with dolls and reading fairy tales – and not worrying about cup sizes and monthly periods. Unfortunately, it seems that more and more girls are entering puberty at an early age.

In 1997, a study on 17,000 girls in North Carolina showed that almost half of African Americans and 15% of whites had begun breast development by age 8. That was more than 10 years ago and this trend of early onset puberty is becoming the norm rather than the exception.

An LA Times article reviews what experts have to say.

It?s normal
Some specialists say the trend of early puberty is not abnormal. Good nutrition, good health care, and good standard of living ? these are all contributing factors that give the go signal to the body to start the process towards reproductive maturity. In other words, girls nowadays are growing up faster than the generations before them because of better quality of life.

It?s not normal
Others think this is abnormal and attribute this alarming trend to exposure to chemicals in food and the environment. Hormones and growth factors in food products are highly suspect.

The consequences
Whatever the reason behind these changes, there are consequences to think of:

• Early puberty means early exposure to estrogen. Estrogen level is a risk factor for breast and cervical cancers.

• There is non-synchrony between the physical and psychological development of these girls. Will we end up with little girls trapped in adult bodies?

• What about consequences on sexuality? Should sex education already start in the second grade? Shall we soon be worrying about pre-teenage pregnancy?

Source:

LA Times, 21 January 2008

Call me shallow, but before I got pregnant I wanted a baby, but really I wanted a girl. I wanted to buy her pink dresses, and Barbie dolls, take her shopping and braid her hair.

I’m a girl, I understand girls, my whole family was female, except my Dad who was good-natured and totally outnumbered, we even had girl cats and girl rabbits. I didn’t get boys. Boys are those weird, smelly, alien creatures who tortured worms in science lab at school. My husband, well he’s an exception, and anyway he’s a man, not a boy.

Before becoming pregnant, I have ideas of following the old wives’ tales of a “girl diet” and as it turns out, scientists recently suggested there’s something to that. But once I don’t get my birth control prescription refilled, before I know it, a pregnancy test turns positive. We are ecstatic, but now I have to confront the fact that this might well be a boy.

What made the difference for me was a book a friend recommended. It’s called It’s A Boy! Women Writers on Raising Sons. (There’s an “It’s a Girl” too, if you are the opposite of me.) Reading the mother’s stories made me laugh, cry, relax, worry, panic, and ultimately accept that sons are different, but every bit as good as daughters.

I’m glad I accepted my potential son early in my pregnancy, I think that I enjoyed being pregnant much more once I had made peace with whatever gender the baby was.

And by the time of the 20-week ultrasound I was convinced the baby was a boy. I was right – my ultrasound technician confirmed that she had seen a boy part, as she put it. But more importantly, she saw the kidneys, head, heart, and limbs of a healthy baby.

It’s a cliche. But cliches are true – It took me a while, but I realised that I really, truly didn’t care if we were getting a boy or a girl, as long as the baby was healthy. And I’m grateful beyond belief to say our beautiful, perfect, wonderful, adored son is healthy.

So we’ve finally gotten all of our Christmas decorations packed away and managed to stuff the last of our used wrapping paper and gift boxes into the recycle bin. But there’s no time to relax, because no sooner has the holiday season ended than birthday season has arrived. My son turns 4 in two weeks, followed by our daughter’s first just two weeks after that.

My to-do list is still packed, but looks a little different: swap baking Christmas cookies for ordering birthday cake; buy gift bags adorned with construction trucks or flowers, instead of Santa or snowmen; and send out birthday invites instead of Christmas cards.

The one constant on both lists is buying gifts for the kids, which is always tricky business when they’ve already gotten loads of stuff over the holidays. We tend to be low-key on gift buying for the birthdays (and store extra gifts from grandparents to break out during the summer) but the question of what to buy is even more complicated this year. I’ve noticed a very interesting thing with the Christmas loot: My son is playing with my baby daughter’s Little People playhouse, while she is checking out his police car and Screaming Monkey. My husband and I worked hard this year to get our daughter some more “girly” things, just so she’d have something that wasn’t a hand-me-down from her brother in which construction trucks, trains or cars didn’t figure prominently. Guess we didn’t have to worry about that after all. And because he’s “big brother” he likes to play with everything that belongs to our daughter, maybe because it reinforces that he’s “in charge.” Maybe we’ll get them a joint birthday gift of a toy dump truck filled with stuffed animals and dolls, and then they’re both happy.

Is there a “battle of the sexes” when it comes to your playroom, or are a lot of your toys gender-free?