This particular baby gender predictor is a classic old wives’ tale to see whether your baby is a boy or girl. In fact, if you could herd together a cackle of the oldest and wisest of wives and ask them to decide on their tip-top tale for baby gender prediction then I bet after only a few moments of magic I’m sure they would pick out this little cracker.
So, how does it work? Well, there are a couple of different versions, but the most common one involves a gold ring (preferably of the wedding variety) a length of thread and the mother to be. Simply tie the ring to one end of the string and hold the other end above the mother’s stomach so the ring can swing freely above the surface. This is easy enough for the mother to do herself if she wants. Hold the string just for a few moments and observe the movement of the ring.
The gender depends on the movement of the ring above the stomach. If you see the ring sway backwards and forwards in a straight line then that means the baby is a girl. If you see the ring moving in a circle then the bump-to-be is a boy. Piece of cake!
There are some other versions along the same sort of theme. Some say you should follow the same steps but dangle the ring above the mother’s palm instead of the stomach. Another version uses a needle instead of a gold ring, similar to a compass. Nevertheless, all the versions have the same diagnosis; swaying back and forth means a girl and swinging in circles means a boy.
Many people have said that this method has produced very accurate results for them. I tried it myself for my first pregnancy and it worked for me too, but I knew I was having a boy and I’m not sure if I was subconsciously moving my pinched finders in minute circles because I already knew the answer. Another thing is that the longer the string the more the ring’s movement is affected by the tiny movement of your hand. Using a needle is a little different as it is much lighter. I think you are more likely to get a twisting affect (and a boy!), especially if the thread is quite thick.
Conclusions
I had three pregnant friends round with their partners and we conducted a little tongue-in-cheek home science experiment using rings and needles. I’m pleased to report that there were no injuries and our overall level of accuracy with rings was a healthy 61%. We swapped wedding rings around as well but this did not seem to change much. The needle was less accurate at 45% and with a lot of spinning seemed to tell us that there should have been more boys about. We also noted that husbands were more accurate at predicting their partner’s baby gender (72%), and this held true even when we used blindfolds! Overall I would say that this baby gender predictor is worth a go for a bit of fun but doesn’t quite match up to more scientific methods.
May 30th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
Thank you so much for sharing this with us, it helps me a lot, realy appreciated!
July 16th, 2010 at 8:45 pm
Being a blawger is like being in charge of your own personal insane asylum.
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