baby

The baby gender prediction chart that's blowing everyone's minds.

Our faith in old wives tales seems no more intense than when it comes to pregnancy and predicting the gender of an unborn baby.

Carrying low? It’s a boy. 

Bad morning sickness? Definitely a girl. 

Feet feeling extra cold? You’re having a fella.

Of course, the only 100 per cent accurate way to know is to wait for the baby’s arrival. (You could also, you know, ask the doctor performing your 20-week ultrasound, but where’s the fun in that?)

For years parents have also been turning to a gender prediction chart, which recently surfaced in the Mamamia Outlouders Facebook group.

How exactly does your doctor predict your due date? Bec Judd discusses Hello Bump. Post continues.

Video by Mamamia

To find out if they’re having a girl or boy, all parents need to do is cross-reference the month they conceived with the age of the mother. The corresponding box is either blue for a boy or pink for a girl.

Listener Melissa shared the chart and asked if it was accurate for other mums, like it had been for her and her friends.

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“Would love to know who figured this out if it is spot on,” she said.

chinese-baby-gender-chart
Image: Facebook.

While dozens of mums happily shared if it had been correct in their case or not, there was one crucial detail missing from Melissa's post that may just change all of the results.

The chart is actually based on Chinese astrology and requires you to use your lunar age as well as the lunar month you conceived.

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The lunar calendar (where February's Chinese New Year comes from) varies slightly from our Gregorian calendar and so your lunar age and the lunar month you conceive are also slightly different.

Thankfully the people at Your Chinese Astrology have a Gregorian-Chinese calendar converter - and also a handy gender calculator, so you don't need to even worry about the chart.

How accurate is this Chinese baby gender chart?

As for the accuracy of the chart, well.. in the Mamamia office it did not have a great strike rate. Widely it's considered to be anywhere between 70 per cent to 98 per cent accurate, but this is of course, based on zero good scientific evidence. (There's also the obvious flaw of not including mums younger than 18 or older than 45.)

Truly, the chart is 50 per cent accurate.

But then again so is your best guess, your mum's best guess and any other non-medical prediction method you try.

Still, just like the apple twisting trick you played as a kid to predict your future husband's first name, it's a bit of harmless fun to test the results.

Have you tried the Chinese gender prediction chart? Did it work for you? Tell us in the comments below.

Monique Bowley and Bec Judd discuss whether or not you need a gender reveal party on our pregnancy podcast.

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