As a mother I know it can drive you crazy waiting until you are 5 months pregnant to know if you will be having a baby boy or baby girl. I couldn't wait to know what color to paint the nursery or what type of clothes to buy. This anticipation is not a new thing, throughout history in every culture people have tried to predict the gender of their baby. One interesting way to predict the gender of a baby is a chart that was created by the Chinese. The Chinese chart predicts the gender of the baby by two factors, the mothers age and the date of conception and it is supposed to be 90% accurate. Now I don't know how true the 90% accuracy rate is, but I do know it was right about my baby girl.

The Chinese Gender Chart was found buried in a tomb near Beijing about 700 years ago and it is said to be 7,000 years old. Originally the Chinese gender chart was not used to predict the baby gender after you have already conceived, it actually was used preconception to determine the best time to conceive a baby boy. The reason for this is Chinese society relies heavily on agriculture. More boys meant more help in the fields, on the family farm, or in the family business. It is also a Chinese tradition that the boy carries on the family name and inherits the ancestral property. Girls on the other hand were just an additional expense and sometimes a great burden for very poor families. 

The Chinese gender chart determines the gender of the baby by two things, the mothers age at the time of conception and the month of conception. If you look at the Chinese gender chart you can see the numbers on the left side of the chart represent the mothers age at the time of conception. The top of the Chinese gender chart shows the month the baby was conceived. For example if the expectant mother is 20 and the baby is conceived in 3rd month the baby will be a girl. Although the Chinese gender chart is only 90 percent accurate if that much, there are things you can do to increase your chances of having a baby boy or baby girl. One thing is not to choose the first or last ten days of a gender period for conception. The other thing is to choose a gender period with many months in a row of the same gender. For example on the Chinese gender chart it shows that a 26 year old woman trying to conceive a baby girl should conceive on the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 7th, or the 9th to the 12th month. While she could try to conceive on the 2nd, 4th, 5th, or 7th month, her best bet would be to conceive the end of the 10th month or the beginning of the 11th month. You should also know the Chinese gender chart is based on the Chinese lunar calendar. That means you must use the lunar month of conception and the mothers lunar age to get the most accurate results.

Since the Chinese gender chart was created in China it only makes sense that it will use the Chinese lunar calendar. Each moon cycle is about 29 and a half days long. To accommodate the half day there are 12 months, with some months being 29 days and some being 30 days long. The Chinese lunar calendar is 11 days shorter than the solar calendar. To make up for this every 19 years the calendar adds 7 more lunar leap months. You can click on the Chinese lunar calendar to the right to see more detail. After you click on it you will see that Chinese New Year in 2009 was on January 26th of the Gregorian calendar. If you look further into it you will see that in 2009 the 14th day of the 1st month was on February 8th of the Gregorian calendar. So if you got pregnant November 19, 2009, it would really be the third day of the 10th month according to the Chinese lunar calendar.

Once again when using the Chinese gender chart you must refer to the mothers Chinese lunar age, not her age according to the western Gregorian calendar. In China the day you are born you are already one year old. So basically whatever your age is add one year to it. If you are 29 years old according to the Gregorian calendar, then you would be 30 according to the Chinese lunar calendar. This formula works for everyone, except people born between January 22nd and February 22nd. The reason for this is because the Chinese new year isn't on January 1st, instead it always falls between January 22nd and February 22nd. For example the year of the monkey began February 16, 1980. If you are born on or after February 16, 1980 then you are born in the year of the monkey and simply adding 1 to your Gregorian calendar age will give you your Chinese age. Although, if you are born in 1980, but before February 16th, then you would be considered to be born the previous year.

If you want to know your Chinese lunar age in 2009 and you are born after February 16, 1980:

2009 - 1980 = 29 + 1 = 30

If you are born BEFORE February 16, 1980 :

2009 - 1979 = 30 + 1 = 31

Now remember the date of the new year always changes, so if you are born between January and February 22nd you can find more calendars here:

http://www.hko.gov.hk/gts/time/conversion.htm

In the end I seriously doubt the accuracy the Chinese gender chart claims to have, more than likely it is just the toss of a coin. However we are becoming more aware of the effects lifestyle, timing, and diet have on determining the gender of the baby we will conceive. For example, I have a friend that had 5 boys, she thought she would never have her little girl. She even went to a doctor who claimed he could choose the gender of her baby, but they were asking for thousands of dollars she and her husband couldn't afford. On top of the thousands of dollars it wasn't even 100 percent guaranteed. Frustrated she started doing research and found there are many natural things you can do to improve your chances of having a boy or a girl. Guess what within a year of starting her research she finally had her little girl.