Recently my best friend gave birth to a cute baby girl. She, as most Indian women, spent the last trimester of her pregnancy at her mom’s place and I used to pay her frequent visits to have such chummy chats with her about everything under the sun. My friend is basically a beautiful lady, but during her pregnancy, I couldn’t help but notice a marked increase in her loveliness. Her complexion was blooming and her eyes had a beautiful glow. She looked extremely feminine with an excellent skin tone. I was mentioning this to my grandma, who casually told me that she was probably carrying a female fetus. I was appalled at this- more so because we live in a scientific world ruled by hi-fi technologies like Ultra Sound Scans, Chorionic Villi sampling and amniocentosis which are rational means that help in determining the sex of the fetus. Her gynecologist did not reveal the sex of the fetus during routine check-ups as this is against law. I was really surprised when my grandma’s prediction of a baby girl came true. At once I started to scan the scientific aspect of this phenomenon but couldn’t quite conclude that all old-wives’ tales are baseless!
Pregnancy by itself brings about an increase in blood circulation, giving the person a clear complexion, irrespective of the sex of the fetus she is carrying. During pregnancy, a number of hormones are busy at work and an increase in estrogen gives some really positive physical changes to the woman. This, I suppose is the reason for enhancing a person’s good looks during that time, more so, if she is carrying a female fetus.
All these said, I was unable to find a concrete evidence to support this fact, that a woman carrying a fetus with ‘XX’ chromosomes looks more attractive than the ones carrying a fetus with ‘XY’ chromosomes I found a New Scientist article – “Hormone levels predict attractiveness of women”, which made a very interesting read and supported this phenomenon partly.
Poor men!!! It is also (absurdly) assumed by old wives that if a lady looks ugly during pregnancy, she is probably carrying a male fetus. I wonder how this fact accounts for the birth of handsome men like Arjun Rampal or Pierce Brosnan or Arvind Swamy or Kamal Hassan?! I wonder how their mothers looked like during their respective pregnancies!I think this will be worth researching ;o)
I wonder what these elusive old wives knew about estrogen, progesterone and human chorionic gonadotropin which made them so confident in the department of pregnancy and child birth in those days that they handled home-births with super ease and deftness.
5 Wisecracks:
little i understand.. never would know..;)
I will have to contradict. My Mom looks amazing. And unsurprisingly, so do I. :D
All our Indian knowledge is crap. Only when some westerner conducts a 'scientific' study and publishes that fact, only then can we accept anything. Should the US sell us cow dung, we will certainly buy it at a premium.
Do not intend to be sarcastic but we tend to reject all our traditional knowledge without even pausing to consider its merits. I am not claiming that everything our ancestors did was right. But rejecting everything is foolishness.
@Yuva
:)
@Sirpy
We live in a subjective world!
@badvt
Your comment itself emphasizes a point. We Indians need to conduct more research studies...not only on this topic, but many many more which require that.
We Indians are rich in traditional knowledge.But people need proof in the form of scientific study.We live in such times. So if something is going to be proved through research, everyone will definitely accept it.Why can't WE do it here so that our own people accept us???
AprilsLady,
Assume, you have the power, to choose the colour/texture/hair of a baby. Assume the baby is guarenteed to be healthy. Would you want ur baby to have the best possible colour/texture/hair that u could think of, or would u want to leave it to fate? Have you ever wondered, why some people have preference, for one specific sex for their baby? Do not underestimate, the way different species have survived... When the ratio gets dangerously uneven, the rare sex would become the coveted sex and the ratio would start moving in the opposite direction.
-Arun.
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