They Say: Boy Births More Complicated

No, not boys giving birth (anyway, he wouldn’t agree). But giving birth to boys is apparently more complicated than giving birth to girls, a new study out of Irsael claims.

These findings lend credence to the old wives tale that I had never before heard, which is that a difficult pregnancy means the baby will be a boy. (Anybody hear that one?)

After looking at 66,000 births, researchers at Tel Aviv University found a slightly greater risk for prematurity or c-section delivery for boy births than for girls. This backed up the findings of study a decade ago, which found males births were a 1.5 times more likely to get stuck in the birth canal.

From the NY Times:

Scientists point out that these findings do not indicate that male births are necessarily “high risk,” just slightly more risky than female births. One reason, it seems, is the larger head size of male babies. But there is speculation that other factors, like higher levels of androgens, may also play a role.

Any midwives, nurses, docs, doulas, etc., etc., have their own intuition on this?

By the way, I’ve also heard boys grow up and never call home, too. Can someone study that because I just had a son and thinking of that makes me panic.

Photo: dailymail.co.uk