by Claudia, followed by Chiara, and finally Fabbrizia – four girls.
Unnatural Selection
FOR couples who are serious about sex selection, there are always the laboratory-based Sperm Olympics in Cleveland. Technicians put semen through various hurdles designed to separate the Y-bearing from X-bearing sperm. Laboratory methods take advantage of differences in weight, electrical charge and swimming speed to separate male from female sperm.
So far, they have apparently been correct fifty per cent of the time.
MORE than one in three couples who pay hundreds of pounds to chose the gender of their child at a controversial London fertility clinic end up with a baby of the opposite sex. The London Gender Clinic has estimated its success rates are more than fifty per cent but less than seventy per cent.
SUGAR and spice and all things nice, that’s what little girls are made of. Slugs and snails and puppy dogs’ tails, that’s what little boys are made of. Well, not quite, but according to a study originally done in France, and followed up in Canada and Belgium, an eighty per cent success rate has been notched up by parents eating certain foods in order to conceive the favoured sex. The menu suggested for conceiving boys is: bananas, cherries, grapes, oranges, peaches, melons, raspberries, sprouts, celery, tomatoes and sweet corn. For girls, parents should try tangerines, grapefruit, apples, pineapples, pears, cucumbers, radishes, lettuce, cabbages, carrots, turnips.
But, one word of caution – anyone suffering from kidney problems should avoid the calcium-rich girl diet, and people with high blood pressure should pass up the salt-rich boy diet.
Designer Labels
BUNNY Hart and Sharon Barnett have come up with a range of designer swimwear for babies, which includes the ‘Tarzan’ for boys, and for girls the one-shoulder ‘Jane’, the ‘Garbo’, the ‘Marilyn’ and the ‘Norma’. Their next collection will include tuxedo suits, and Lycra numbers which will be translucent except for appliqués of palm trees and flowers on strategic areas.
FOR the more daring babies, the latest in beach wear is the B-string – a G-string for kids. As a concession to sensitive stores, who were worried that a display of cheeks and nipples would be too much for some beach-loving parents, the designers of the B-string have created matching bandeaux, which can be worn as bikini tops. Alternatively, for those daring little Baywatch Babes under twelve months old, they can be worn as headbands.
BABIES with style need money too – especially for a fancy outfit by Marc Bohan for Christian Dior. A saucy little number with a black velvet bustier, yellow satin puff skirt and tulle petticoat could set back the parents of the fashion addict a cool £2,500!
DESIGNERS K. T. Maclay and Linda Sampson may have been the forerunners of the ‘designer baby’ concept. In 1972 in New York, they brought out a line of ‘pregnancy puffs’, strap-on, oval-shaped pillows that make the wearer look pregnant. Presumably, if a woman decided that pregnancy didn’t suit her, she just adopted.
THE Empathy Belly was created by Linda Ware, a prenatal educator from Washington. The belly consists of a huge womb-like structure with large breasts, costing £395 ($595). It is designed to be worn by the male partner so he can appreciate the discomfort of the late stages of pregnancy. It weighs thirty-five pounds and is guaranteed to cause backache, shortness of breath and fatigue. It also has a special pouch that presses on the wearer’s bladder, creating a regular need to urinate.
Birth Tales
EVERY year, around eighty women go into labour on the New York subways, of which six or seven give birth on the platforms.
MAGDALENA Deskur and Maxine Arthur both work for Sports Illustrated Magazine. Although they are competitive, sporty women, who like to win, they had no idea they would be racing against each other – to give birth. They met in their obstetrician’s office, where Maxine was found to be in labour, but nothing much seemed to be happening for Magdalena, who had thought she was in labour too. However, by the time Maxine had arrived at the admissions desk of the Beth Israel Hospital in New York, Magdalena’s labour had started, and she was ready for admission at the same hospital. They went to their rooms in the same hallway, and their obstetrician began his own race – between the rooms of the two colleagues. At 6.19 p.m. Maxine gave birth to her seven-pound two-ounce son. Thirty-five minutes later, Magdalena produced a seven-pound-four-ounce girl. Both babies measured twenty inches. Exhausted Dr Swersky declared a photo finish.
IF Mary Ellen Allen had taken the time to have regular antenatal checks, the chances are that her daughter, Shadonna Allen, would never have been born. When Mary visited Dr James Lee, he discovered that her baby was growing outside Mrs Allen’s Fallopian tubes, and had embedded itself in her abdominal cavity. As the unusual pregnancy was well advanced, however, he decided it was best to wait and see if the baby could survive. The chance was one in 200,000, but Shadonna was delivered eight weeks prematurely, weighing in at a tiny one pound and nine ounces.
THE heaviest single birth on record was a boy weighing twenty-two pounds and eight ounces who was born to Signora Carmelina Fedele of Aversa, Italy in 1955.
Famous Babies
WHEN Pablo Picasso was born, the midwife thought he was stillborn, and left the baby lying on a table. His uncle, who was a doctor, saw the lifeless baby and decided to see if there was anything he could do. He tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and young Pablo took his first breath.
LEONARDO da Vinci, Richard Wagner and Napoleon Bonaparte were all illegitimate.
TWENTY-ONE of the first twenty-three US astronauts who flew in space missions were either only children or firstborn sons, but no president of the US has been an only child.
WINSTON Churchill was born in a ladies’ cloakroom. His mother had been attending a dance at Blenheim Palace when she went into premature labour.
MARK Twain was born in 1835, when Hailey’s Comet appeared. And he died in 1910 – when it made its next appearance. Even more remarkable was his prediction years earlier: ‘I was born when Hailey’s Comet came in, I will die when it comes back. It is fitting that these two freaks of nature should come in together, and go out together.’
Youngest …
MUM-ZI, a member of the harem of Chief Akkiri, ruler of the estuary of Calabar, Nigeria, became a mother at the age of eight years and four months. Her daughter followed in her precocious footsteps, and herself became a mother at the age of eight, making Mum-zi the youngest grandmother on record at the age of seventeen.
… And Oldest
