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Are more boys born than girls?

Boy or girl? The relationship is not quite balanced
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Girl or boy? Statistically, it's more like a boy

The sex of the child is already genetically determined at conception: with the famous X and Y chromosome combination. From the eleventh week, the genitals will slowly become visible to the parents on the ultrasound: Will it be a boy or a girl?

Worldwide, the gender ratio is around 51 to 49 percent - with about 100 newborn girls, about 105 boys come. According to the Federal Statistical Office, exactly 349, 820 boys were born in Germany in 2013 - and 'only' 332, 249 girls. Here, too, the ratio of 51 to 49 percent. But why is not Fifty-Fifty between the sexes?

At the time of conception, there are just as many boys and girls, British and American researchers now found out. The mild imbalance comes later - for a sad reason : "More girls die than boys during pregnancy, " writes Steven Hecht Orzack of the Fresh Pond Research Institute at Cambridge in the new study.

Researchers analyzed data on miscarriages, abortions, artificial inseminations, amniocentesis, and deathbill statistics in the United States. This way you can also give more details about the development of the embryo. According to this, more male embryos die in the first week of fertilization, while more females die in the next 10 to 15 weeks. In the end, more males than females make it to birth, which is reflected in the global 51 to 49 rate.

Other factors influencing the gender ratio could, according to previous studies, also be environmental conditions such as starvation. Thus, after hunger - such as after 1959 and 1961 in China - more girls to the world. The American scientists who published this result two years ago have not provided any explanation, but the theory that female embryos have fewer 'claims' to survive.

By the way: The Italian gynecologist Angelo Cagnacci from the Polyclinic in Modena found out in 2005 that the seasons also have a statistically verifiable influence on the sex ratio. According to Cagnacci, more boys will be bred in the fall - the "high season" of the girls is between March and May.

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