When you are having a baby the question on everybody’s lips are “is it a boy or is it a girl?” Many people want to know as soon as possible, but it is not possible to know the mystery until the mother is around 16 weeks pregnant.
The gender is determined immediately upon fertilisation, which can occur anytime between a few hours and 5 days after intercourse. The sperm is the carrier of the gender of the baby and can survive inside the uterus or fallopian tubes for up to 5 days.
To understand how gender occurs, let us have a closer look at the sperm of a male. Each sperm has 46 chromosome pairs. So half of male sperm carries a Y (male) chromosome and the other half of the sperm carries an X (female) chromosome. A woman only carries XX pairs of chromosomes.
If an egg is fertilised by a sperm carrying an X chromosome, the resulting embryo will have two X’s (XX) and will be a girl. If it is fertilised by a sperm carrying a Y chromosome, the embryo will have XY chromosomes and therefore will be a boy.
Since the man’s sperm carries both male and female (Y and X) chromosomes in a 50 to 50 proportion, and the women’s eggs carry only one female X because her sex chromosomes are XX, the man’s sperm holds the key to the baby’s gender.
There are no methods that can influence what gender the baby will be. But some studies show that the sperm carrying the Y chromosome are faster, but don’t live as long as the X chromosome.
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*All of our information are only guidelines and are not intended to replace the advice of a professional medical specialist; we are providing information to you on a general information basis only. My Pregnancy Journey disclaims any liability for the decisions you make based on this information.
