Some couples dream of experiencing parenthood with both a son and a daughter (or vice versa). If you’d love to have a child of a specific gender to complete your family, what are your options?

Landrum B. Shettles created the Shettles method thirty years ago as a natural way to choose a child’s sex. Here are his methods:

1. Time of intercourse

It involves planning sexual activity around a woman’s menstrual cycle and adopting particular sex positions.

Shettles’ book “How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby” postulates that male (Y) sperm is smaller, faster, and shorter-lived than female (X) sperm.

According to Shettles, couples who want a male child should engage in sexual activity near the moment of a woman’s egg release, or ovulation.

2. Sex position during intercourse

Shettles suggests that if a couple wants to have a male child, they should have sex via the back (doggy style). Sperm released by rear-entry intercourse at the cervix’s opening is similarly advantageous to the Y chromosome.

He recommended that parents who are looking for a girl engage in missionary sex two to four days prior to ovulation in order to guarantee that the woman’s reproductive tract retains only the more robust and hearty X sperm.

3. The time of female orgasm

According to Shettles, the secretions produced during female orgasms are alkaline. Hence, the female should hold off on having an orgasm until after the male ejaculates. If the couple wants a male child, the woman should orgasm before the man ejaculates.

Shettles said that his patients who used his suggested methods saw an 80% success rate.

4. Ovulation scheduling

Martin Young, a paediatrician, doesn’t agree with the approach of Shettles. His own method involves scheduling sex several days before ovulation for male children and near it for female children. If implemented correctly, Young said his method can raise the success rate to roughly 67%.

5. Sperm sorting

But many researchers believe that all these methods are not foolproof. The current gold standard for sex selection, according to fertility specialists, is MicroSort—a technique that separates male sperm from females.

Right now, sperm sorting is seen as the most practical approach; however, it works best when combined with in vitro fertilisation.