The Timing Methods and Dr Shettles
The most read about method is the "Timing Method" which was developed by a Doctor Shettles and called the Shettles method. There is no register of users so there is no possibility of measuring the success rate. Parents are asked to try for boys during ovulation and girls 3 days before ovulation.
It is wrongly assumed that the Y chromosome (boy) provides a lighter sperm which races to the egg faster than the heavier X sperm. As we explained the difference in weight or size is negligible and the speed of delivery of thousands of sperm in a small space does not allow for these ideologistic theories. It is not a credible situation.
Sperm rarely remains fertile for more than 2 days, so users cannot easily be blessed with girls or even a baby if the only time to try is "3 days prior" to ovulation! It would create much stress as mothers who today mostly want a little girl would have great problems in the difficult task of predicting a future ovulation to the exact day. Boys are made on day of ovulation or day before and so are girls !
The method has popular appeal and is well introduced by hundreds of existing fertility service companies specialising in selling various kits such as ovulation predictors. They have no idea who uses the calendar for gender selection. And the results. Dr Shettles finally advised different diets for each gender as well and he was right to do so as the "race" idea is not a biological solution.
Dr Shettles, criticised as he was for his non biological assumptions, did however publicly engender the idea that parents should have a right to try to choose their ideal family. "To quote a couple of reviews, (there are many) RH Gray, in a 1991 article in American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology says that the Shettles method is contradicted by scientific data. Finally, in a 1995 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers Allen Wilcox, Clarice Weinberg and Donna Baird say that "the timing of sexual intercourse in relation to ovulation has no bearing on the sex of the baby".
I will be happy
to discuss my personal views on gender selection with you apart, of course,
from repeating the above information. Just e-mail
me.
All the best!