Heartburn = A Hairy Baby? 5 Old Wives’ Tales About Conception And Pregnancy And Whether Or Not They’re True

Being pregnant or trying to conceive is stressful enough without having to decipher all of that nonsense, so let’s put some widely held conception and pregnancy myths to bed.

Myth 1: Different sex positions affect the chance of getting pregnant

Despite the popular belief that lying back and thinking of England is one of the best ways to wind up with a baby, there’s actually no evidence that supports the notion that any particular sex position can increase the chances of pregnancy.

“Sperm can be found in the cervical canal seconds after ejaculation, regardless of coital position,” explains a consensus opinion paper by an expert committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. “There is no evidence that coital position affects fecundability [the probability of becoming pregnant within one menstrual cycle].”

The same thing goes for positions after sex, like someone laying flat on their back with their legs in the air. “Although many [people] think that remaining supine for an interval after intercourse facilitates sperm transport and prevents leakage of semen from the vagina, this belief has no scientific foundation,” reads the expert consensus.

Myth 2: You can naturally control the sex of your baby

There are plenty of old wives’ tales out there about natural ways you can conceive a baby of a particular sex: having sex in certain positions, eating certain foods, and even doing the deed during certain Moon phases. These are all bogus, and so too is the idea that carefully timing sex can control whether or not a baby is male or female.

This timing myth actually has more modern origins. Back in the 1960s, American OB-GYN Dr Landrum Shettles claimed that sperm cells carrying the Y chromosome are shaped differently, swim faster, and have a shorter lifespan than those carrying the X chromosome.

He developed the Shettles Method – which involves having sex a few days before ovulation to supposedly increase the likelihood of making a female baby, or on the days following ovulation to up the chances of a male baby.

The trouble is that scientific evidence does not back up the theory that the method is based on; besides the DNA they carry, research has shown that there are no significant differences between X and Y sperm cells. Plus, sex is actually far more complicated than just chromosomes.

But could timing still make a difference by some other means? Also no. Despite some early studies supporting the Shettles Method, later research has concluded that timing intercourse relative to ovulation doesn’t have an influence on the baby’s sex.

Myth 3: You can’t get pregnant from having sex on your period

You might have heard that it’s impossible for someone to become pregnant from having unprotected sex whilst menstruating. After all, no egg to be seen and a womb lining in self-destruct mode doesn’t exactly seem like the ideal environment for that to happen.

The truth is that, while it’s much less likely, it isn’t impossible. Sperm can stick around in the reproductive tract for around five days. That means if someone has a short cycle or ovulates early, the sperm could still be alive and kicking after their period is over to fertilize the egg – and bam, pregnancy. 

Myth 4: You can predict a baby’s sex

In the same way that there are popular myths about being able to control the sex of a baby, so too is there long-held lore about all the supposed ways you can predict the sex of a baby once someone is pregnant. You’ve probably heard of some of them: the shape of someone’s bump, whether or not they’ve had morning sickness, hanging a wedding ring in front of their belly and seeing how it spins (yes, really).

If that all sounds a bit doubtful, you’d be correct. There’s some evidence suggesting a link between carrying a female fetus and a higher reported frequency of hyperemesis gravidarum – or severe nausea and vomiting during pregnancy – but it’s definitely not a surefire predictor. As for bumps and wedding rings, there’s no reliable scientific backing to be found.

The more dependable way to determine the sex of a baby is through medical testing, such as a mid-pregnancy ultrasound – which still isn’t always 100 percent accurate – to identify anatomical sex, or genetic tests.

Myth 5: Got heartburn? Baby’s gonna be hairy

If pregnancy’s got someone reaching for the Tums on a regular basis, they might be told that their baby is going to be born with a lot of hair. The results of a 2006 study seem to support the idea, but there’s a fair way to go before we can conclude that it’s definitely the case.

The study asked 64 pregnant women to rank the severity of their heartburn during pregnancy. Shortly after their babies were born, independent coders then looked at photos of the babies’ heads in order to rate the volume of their hair.

The researchers’ conclusion might come as a surprise. “Contrary to expectations, it appears that an association between heartburn severity during pregnancy and newborn hair does exist,” they wrote, having found that 23 out of the 28 women who reported moderate or severe heartburn had babies born with average or above average amounts of hair.

However, there are a couple of glaring limitations with this finding, one being that it’s based on a small sample size – you’d need more than 64 people to reliably say that there’s a relationship between heartburn and hairy babies. The heartburn data was also self-reported, which makes it less reliable; some people’s idea of severe heartburn might be tame for someone else.

In other words, we can’t say for sure that having intense heartburn during pregnancy means a baby will be born with luscious locks – so best not to give away any of those nice hats your granny knitted for you.

All “explainer” articles are confirmed by fact checkers to be correct at time of publishing. Text, images, and links may be edited, removed, or added to at a later date to keep information current.

The content of this article is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.