This story
starts in 1962. I was a very young doctor, just started a new job at a newly
opened Medical school as a lecturer. It was my very first day, at my first job
after completing my training. Those days there was no ultrasound, not even an x-ray
machine nearby. My registrar called me to this new admission in the labour ward
a woman was in established labour, who had never seen a doctor throughout her
entire pregnancy. She had an enormous belly. It was difficult to feel anything.
I expected it to be a twin pregnancy with too much fluid. We had no idea about
her blood count. She told us she is trying for a male child and already has six
daughters .Within minutes of her arrival the first child was born, the second
child was already in a big hurry to arrive in the world , her belly was still
somewhat biggish, however I gave her the injections to prevent bleeding
which is given after twin birth, then
suddenly I realised that there was another baby, I had never witnessed a triplet birth and never thought of it, we
rushed a bit, to save getting this baby
trapped after the injection, but luckily
this baby arrived safely. Guess what, all the babies were girls well formed all
normal with good weights between 4.5 lbs to 5 lbs. I suddenly felt very sad. I
did not know how to tell the parents I told them of a family who had 8
daughters hoping for a son one day they all became very successful doctors.
Here with this lower middle class family I was worried about their feeding and
schooling. 60 years on, since I still
think of what happened to them. In some countries there is such a fanaticism
about having a son to carry the family name. Sadly the women are always blamed
however it is the fathers Y chromosome which is responsible for the sex of the
baby. In humans there are two sex chromosomes X and Y. The females have XX and
male are XY. When a baby is being formed, an X chromosome comes from the mother
and Y from the father, if there is a Y chromosome then the baby will be male.
There is a 50 /50 chance in nature what will happen. There are a few theories. The sperm can be
male or female depending on what a particular man has inherited. The male are
divided as mm, mf, and ff, men with mm sperm will mostly have boys and ff will
mostly have girls. This varies in different generations. The female sperm is longer stronger and also
lives longer so a few theories were suggested that if you want to have a female
child work out your ovulation and refrain from having sex two to three days
before that, by the time you ovulate your male sperms may have demised, and if
you want a male child have sex as close to ovulation as possible the fast
running sperm will be able to fertilize the egg. In the 21st century
ovulation can be worked out by temperature charts, and ultrasounds, even an
artificial inoculation of sperm can be done on the precise day. This in my very
brief experience proved excellent. In more sophisticated medical situations
where sexing is required for prevention of sex linked diseases, a micro sort
system is recommended in preference to per implantation biopsy and intra
villous sampling. Stories also go about what position you adopt during sex for
a boy or girl. Inherited billionaires have more boys. People who have more
brothers have more sons and vice versa. How do we guess in modern times when
everybody has only one or two siblings? To my way of thinking the ovulation
technique seems more scientific. Poor King Henry the VIII was not aware of any
of this, and that it was he who was responsible for the sex of his child and
not his queens.
