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Life

17th Sep 2018

Boy or girl? These are the old wives’ tales I found to be true during my pregnancies

Melissa Carton

Boy or girl?

There are so many old wives tales out there when it comes to predicting the sex of your baby, but do they actually work?

I’ve had one boy and one girl and some I found to be true while others not so much, but the ones below seemed pretty accurate during my pregnancies.

If you’re currently pregnant and trying to figure out whether you’ll be having a bouncing boy or a gorgeous girl have a look at some of these.

Signs that you’re having a boy

Mums to be will love this one. Apparently, if you’re having a boy it’s the dad that gains weight during the pregnancy and not the mum! I actually gained very little weight when I was pregnant with my son and my grandmother said the same about being pregnant with her sons so maybe there’s some truth to it.

This other one is not so great, as mums soon to be bearing boys get hairier than usual during pregnancy. Seeing as I gave up shaving my legs on both pregnancies I can neither confirm nor deny this fact that this was caused by my son, but I do remember having very hairy legs.

One pretty common one is having more savoury cravings than sweet. This did, in fact, happen to me during my first pregnancy. I wasn’t interested in cake or sugary treats and the only chocolate I could stomach was really bitter dark chocolate.

Signs that you’re having a girl

'hipster' baby girl names

It’s said that girls steal their mother’s beauty during pregnancy and this was definitely the case when I was pregnant with my daughter. It didn’t matter what skin care products I used my skin would dry out and crack, so there may be something to this old wives tale.

It’s said that your cravings head towards candy land when you’re due a daughter and this is exactly what happened to me. A complete 180 to my cravings on my son, all I wanted was cake, chocolate, jellies and biscuits. Needless to say, I gained a bit more weight during that pregnancy.

Another way of telling if you’re pregnant with a girl is if your face is rounder than usual. Now I’m pretty sure from looking at photographs that I did have a bit of a moon face on my last pregnancy but I also pretty sure that that was due to all the pastries.

What do you think? Can old wives tales really predict what gender your baby is going to be or are they all just a bit of fun?