How to control the sex of your baby

Females have often been viewed as the subordinate sex towards the males. This is obvious in our history books, which are mostly filled with names of men and their achievements. We read of male kings, emperors, magicians, and even with religion the main “GOD” is male (e.g. Zeus, Jesus). To this day male domination is rampant. Most leaders are male, when we marry, the wife and children carry the name of the husband, the father is the “head” of the family, etc. This is why back in the day, and even until today, most couples would prefer to have male children since they carry they family legacy. In China alone, for example, the culture and infertile couples pay more for human-trafficked sons than daughters because a son carries the family line (BBC News 2000). However, the world is changing. Females are starting to take on roles that were thought to be only for males. Despite this, parents still have a preference as to what sex they’d want their baby to be. Listed below are a few tips on how to control the sex of your baby.

So called "methods" on conceiving the desired sex of your child (Ovulation-Calculator.com undated, Bouchez 2004, Life Serve 2005, Yahoo Answers 2007, FertilAid 2008, ninemsn Health 2008, Patterson 2008, Yahoo Health 2008):

• Time of conception

- the parents must make have sex on odd days of the month to have a boy;

- the parents must make love when there’s a quarter moon in the sky to have a boy;

- the parents must get together for an afternoon of love on even days of the month to have a girl;

- Shettles Method (do not have intercourse during your "transitional" fertile days four to five days before you ovulate to have a boy and make love during the transitional days and two to three days before you ovulate to have a girl);

- getting conceived on certain times of the woman’s ovulation cycle/ ovulation calculator could result in the desired sex of your baby; or

- follow the Chinese Lunar Calendar to determine the appropriate time of the year for conception with regards to your age to result in desired sex of your baby.

• Diet (which should be followed 3 months before conceiving)

To have a boy, the woman, yet preferably the couple, must have a diet rich in potassium and sodium, but lacks magnesium and calcium (e.g. carbonated drinks, red meat, sausages, jams, soups, honey, fresh fruit, pastries, fresh vegetables, white bread loaves, pasta, potatoes, salted nuts, chips and rice).

To have a girl, the woman, yet preferably the couple, must have a diet with plenty of magnesium and calcium but lacks sufficient quantities of sodium and potassium (e.g. fresh fruits and vegetables, fish, dairy products, food stuffs that are not too salty, salt-free bread and butter, ice-cream and eggs).

• Weather the baby must be conceived

Having your baby conceived on hot weather will result in a boy.

Having your baby conceived on cold weather will result in a girl. The thinking is, the hotter weather might effect dad's testes, and result in more Y chromosome sperm, which produces boys.

• Position during intercourse

To have a boy:

- the mother must be on top while conceiving;

- the mother must lie down after sex and stay there so that the male sperm have a high chance of beating the female sperm to the egg;

- mothers should sleep to the left side of their husband; and

- the parents must make love standing up.

To have a girl:

- the father must be on top while conceiving; and

- the woman should initiate sex.

References:

BBC News (2000) China’s kidnap victims freed, Available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/927309.stm, [Accessed 14 June 2008].

Bouchez, C. (2004) Boy or Girl? How to tell! Available from: http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=52367, [Accessed 13 June 2008].

Lavigne, S. (1996) How to make a Boy or Girl Baby, Available from: http://www.amazon.com/How-Make-Boy-Girl-Baby/dp/044050709X, [Accessed 14 June 2008].

Life Serve (2005) Find Out If It’s Pregnancy Fact or Folklore, Available from: http://www.canada.com/topics/lifestyle/parenting/story.html?id=a6a3a320-d189-4195-b888-24e034ab50e6&k=33019, [Accessed 13 June 2008].

ninemsn Health (2008) What’s Good For You: Is it a boy or a girl? Available from: http://health.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=123783, [Accessed 13 June 2008].

Ovulation-Calculator.com (undated) Preconception. The Information you Need to Help you Get that BFP (Big Fat Positive!), Available from: http://www.ovulation-calculator.com/genderselection.htm, [Accessed 14 June 2008].

Patterson, A. (2008) Diet- The Secret That Could Determine The Sex Of Your Baby, Available from: http://ezinearticles.com/?Diet---The-Secret-That-Could-Determine-The-Sex-Of-Your-Baby&id=905433, [Accessed 13 June 2008].

Yahoo Answers (2007) What myths have you heard to determine the sex of an unborn child? Available from: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070326200058AALUvoR, [Accessed 13 June 2008].

Yahoo! Health (2008) Twelve Myths About Pregnancy, Available from: http://health.yahoo.com/pregnancy-overview/twelve-myths-about-pregnancy/harvard--COL020805.html, [Accessed 13 June 2008].

Stop Sweaty Palms and Feet with Tea

There are a number of individuals on this planet, like me, who suffer from insanely sweaty palms and feet. This phenomenon, if we can call it that, creates so much inconveniences such as:

• not being able to wear stilettos/slippers since your feet will always slide forward;
• wearing footwear without socks can cause blisters since your sweat will cause you to slide to and from in it;
• having a difficult time filling out forms, exams, etc, since your palms soak up the paper;
• feeling embarrassed to shake hands since your hands are so "icky" and wet;
• looking tense when your not, since sweat is an indicator of looking tense;
• smelly feet...for those who like wearing closed shoes and therefore you get worried about removing your shoes in times that you have to and you didn't expect to;
• limit of job opportunities...e.g.....it's pretty dangerous to be an electrician....and....what if it's your dream to be a casino card dealer?!;
• you'll often have butter fingers in sports; and
  
• more, which you can feel free to tell me and I will ad to this list.
  

How can we stop this? The most common advices are to wear cotton socks/gloves, carry and handkerchief with you all the time, change footwear every now and then, always have clean footwear, avoid wearing rubber footwear, stick to rubber footwear. How boring!!! This limits ones choice of footwear! Besides, who has find nice, pretty, and sexy looking leather stilettos? I haven't yet. If one knows of a shop that makes them....please....inform me. That will be extremely fantastic. Also, why would one want to wear gloves all the time? You wouldn't want to look like a mime everyday!!! I've heard of a simple household remedy that can solve such a phenomenon. This is through the use of tea that many individuals enjoy drinking everyday. Below is the procedure:

1. Boil five tea bags (black tea preferably) in a quart of water for at least 10 minutes, or longer than you would normally if you were to drink the tea. This is to extract all of the tannic in the tea.
2. Pour the solution into a 2 containers. One should fit both your feet. The other should fit both your hands.
3. When the solution s cool enough for you to stick you feet and hands in, keep them in there for at least 30 minutes at least once everyday for two weeks. You can do this while watching TV so that time will fly by.
4. Dry your hands and feet in a clean towel. Make sure you remove the stains that can be caused by the tea. You wouldn't want to have feet and hand color that is different to the rest of your body. This might be a worse problem than the sweaty feet and hands.
5. After 2 weeks, you can do this every other day, until you wouldn't have to do it as frequently anymore.

Why tea? Well, tea contains tannic acid, which is responsible for its antiperspirant action (The People's Pharmacy 1999) , can even help prevent blisters (Wikipedia 2008), and even remove the stink.


References

Sally aka Fixpert (2006) Pound: The Sweaty Palm Handshake, Available from: http://www.fixpert.com/artwork/sweaty-foosball-palms/, [Accessed 13 June 2008].

The People's Pharmacy (1999) Tea For Sweaty Palms and Soles, Available from: http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/archives/home_remedies/tea_for_sweaty_palms_and_soles.php, [Accessed 1 June 2008].

Wikipedia (2008) Tannic Acid, Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tannic_acid, [Accessed 1 June 2008].