How to Conceive a Girl the Shettles Way

Are you trying to find out how to conceive a girl?  Well, back in the Swinging Sixties an OB GYN from Mississippi, Landrum Shettles MD, published a book called “How to Choose the Sex of your Baby” and in the 21^st century it is still one of the most referred to books on gender selection in the world (he revised it in 2006, to reflect “modern times”).

Whether his method really works or not is still a highly debatable subject, but based on his medical background his theories do make a great deal of biological sense. He bases his methods on the fact that X-chromosome carrying sperm – the ones that result in conceiving a girl – are slower swimming and larger than their Y counterparts but are better suited to the acidic environment of a woman’s body and far hardier.

How to conceive a girl, according to Dr. Shettles:

Have intercourse 2-3 days before ovulation and then avoid intercourse from just before ovulation until 2 days after ovulation. Methods like charting basal temperatures can help couples get their timing right to a certain degree, as can those over the counter ovulation predictor kits. The theory here is that is that when you have sex a few days before ovulation, only the X-chromosome “girl sperm” will be left in the female reproductive tract waiting to fertilize the egg when it is released.

Have intercourse that involves shallow penetration only. Shettles advises that the old fashioned missionary position is best. The idea is that sperm is deposited away from the cervix and that the majority of the “boy sperm” will die off before reaching their destination.

Sorry ladies, but according to Dr Shettles if you want to conceive a girl you will have to sacrifice a little pleasure. He theorizes that the female orgasm causes the vagina to become more alkaline, something that favors the Y sperm over the X.