I sometimes hear from couples who have been trying to become pregnant for long enough that they have had the man's sperm count tested to make sure that there are no problems.
Some then contact me and wonder whether, if that this testing indicated a high sperm count, does this make them more likely to conceive a girl or a boy baby? The answer to this isn't all that clear and discussions on this can get heated and controversial.
There have been some studies that have tested the ratio of X (girl producing) to Y (boy producing) sperm in a variety of men (including those who have both girls and boys running in their families and including those with high sperm counts) and most of these studies have continued to find a ratio of around 50 / 50.
Of course, this is pretty close to what we find is hospitals all over the world.
Mother nature has a way of balancing out males to female birth rates.
However, there are old wives tales as well as stray studies which indicate that a high sperm count makes you more likely to conceive a boy baby.
Many people continue to believe this.
I would take this with a grain of salt though and I will tell you why.
If you break natural gender selection down to its most simple form, away from all the controversy and disagreement, every one can agree that if a Y sperm chromosome fertilizes the egg, the resulting birth is a boy.
If it is an X instead, then that results in a girl.
There's also no disagreement on the fact that literally millions of sperm - both X and Y - are taking part in a battle to fertilize the egg.
But usually, only one sperm chromosome makes it, (unless you are those rare folks who end up with twins or multiples.
) There is very little if anything that you can do to control this.
But while you can not really control the ratio of Y to X sperm as it leaves the man and enters the woman's reproductive tract, what you can try to control is the X to Y ratio once these get closer to the egg.
You do this by tweaking the woman's PH and using the timing of your conception to your best advantage.
If you want a girl baby, then you want to destroy or discourage as many Y's as possible.
And if you want a boy, then the X's are in your cross hairs.
There are adjustments that you can make to your diet or to your vaginal environment (via douching) that can help you to accomplish this.
You can also test to see when ovulation is most likely to happen and plan to conceive accordingly (earlier for a girl and later for a boy is most effective.
) But what does this mean if you think you already have more Y's or a better chance for a boy if your partner or man's sperm count is high? Well, without continuing to argue the validity of this point, that depends upon whether you want a girl or boy baby.
If you want a boy or son, then this arguably makes your job easier.
However, you have to know that there will still be some X's to contend with even if you believe the theory that they are in lesser numbers.
To discourage those, you can make your PH alkaline to help out the Y sperm.
Now if you believe this theory and you want a girl, all is not lost.
There are still going to be X's racing for the egg.
Your goal would be to make the most of what you have by making your vaginal PH acidic to destroy or discourage those Y's that you believe or in greater numbers.
I really don't buy the theory that a high sperm count favors boys.
However, even if this is true, there is more to gender selection than those ratios.
There are always both Y's and X's racing for the egg.
The real question is which is going to make it first and how you can make life impossible or more difficult for those that you don't want to win.