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Gender and Fetal Heart Rate
by Nancy Sullivan, CNM, MS, FACNM
Q. Someone recently told me that the gender of a baby can be determined by the fetal heart rate because apparently one sex is higher then the other. Is this true?
A. The average fetal heart beat is 140 beats per minute. If the heart beat is consistently higher than that, there is a 5% increased chance that the baby is a girl; consistently lower than that, 5% increased chance that it is a boy. So, there is some truth to this, but not enough to tell you for sure if you are having a boy or a girl.
