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Male and female babies during pregnancy show different growth and development patterns following stressors during pregnancy such as disease, cigarette use or psychological stress.
Sex of the baby determines the way it responds to stressors during pregnancy and its ability to survive
Seeded on Thu Apr 29, 2010 2:49 PM EDT
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"What we have found is that male and female babies will respond to a stress during pregnancy by adjusting their growth patterns differently," said Associate Professor Clifton.
"The male, when mum is stressed, pretends it's not happening and keeps growing, so he can be as big as he possibly can be. The female, in response to mum's stress, will reduce her growth rate a little bit; not too much so she becomes growth restricted, but just dropping a bit below average.
"When there is another complication in the pregnancy – either a different stress or the same one again - the female will continue to grow on that same pathway and do okay but the male baby doesn't do so well and is at greater risk of pre-term delivery, stopping growing or dying in the uterus."
- 3 votes
#1 - Thu Apr 29, 2010 2:51 PM EDTIt shouldn't surprise us. Female is the default sex of every fetus. If the hormones are not right at a certain phase of development, then the fetus remains female.
Baby boys don't survive as well as girls once born either. Baby boys are born in a ratio of 104 to 100, but by the first year of age, the ratio is reversed: 96 boys survive for every 100 girls.
Of course, on the other end of life, women live longer too, so our survival rate is higher all the way through.
- 3 votes
#3 - Thu Apr 29, 2010 4:08 PM EDTIf the hormones are not right at a certain phase of development, then the fetus remains female.
But it will still have the DNA of a male. It will be an XY anyway. This is when gender dysfunction becomes an issue.
- 1 vote
It will still have male DNA if that was its DNA at the time of conception. But that doesn't mean that every female fetus that develops has male DNA. The vast majority have female DNA. Having male DNA is what triggers the changes at six weeks.
As to gender dysfunction, that can work the other way around too: a person can feel they were born into a male body and should have been born into a female body, so I'm not sure that the failure to develop as a boy with male DNA is the cause of gender dysfunction.
Is it not true that many with gender dysfunction have the right chromosomes for the developed sex of body they are in?
On a related note: I wonder if stress is one reason why the fetus would fail to develop the right genitals for its DNA?
- 1 vote
On a related note: I wonder if stress is one reason why the fetus would fail to develop the right genitals for its DNA?
Good question.
Is it not true that many with gender dysfunction have the right chromosomes for the developed sex of body they are in?
I don't know the statistics, but I would like to.
But as for the DNA thing - if the DNA is for a male and the baby doesn't have male sex organs, I would call that a deformation that should be corrected. I wouldn't think it right to raise the baby a girl. What do you think?
I'm not sure what I think about sex reassignment at birth, not even for those who have two sets of genitals. I've read about it, including the words of people who had it done at birth and then grew up feeling strange in their own body.
Can we decide for another what sex they should be? Should we? I'm glad I never had to make that decision because I'd sure hate to be wrong.
- 4 votes
It's wonderful,to think, all the combinations and variables that we are, it's amazing and great to learn how we all are unique on this sliding scale.
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