When it comes to the issue of having a boy or a girl, this topic has been widely discussed in my country's feudal society for thousands of years. Even in that era when boys were favored over girls, many people resorted to many superstitious methods in order to have a boy, such as taking folk remedies and begging for help. God did this, and blamed all the problem of 's inability to give birth to boys on women.
With the development of modern science and medicine, the public has gradually realized the decisive factors of the gender of offspring. At first, people thought that the gender of offspring was only related to male sperm. With the deepening of research, it was found that egg cells can also affect the gender of offspring to a certain extent. , what exactly is going on?
Sperm and egg cells
If humans want to have offspring, they need sperm and egg cells to combine to form fertilized eggs.
Sperm is the male reproductive cell, which is formed in the male testis. Sperm is an important component of male semen, which is produced by the testicles. During each reproductive process, there are approximately 160 million to 200 million sperm per milliliter of semen produced by men. The sperm is shaped like a tadpole, with a total length of about 66 microns, and is divided into two parts: a head and a tail. The head is oval in shape, with a very dense chromatin nucleus and an acrosome inside. The acrosome is essentially a membrane organelle, similar to the lysosome , and contains a variety of hydrolases . There is an axoneme in the middle of the tail, which contains mitochondria, which provides energy supply for the life activities and movement of the entire sperm. The life span of sperm is generally about 72 days. After the sperm matures, it needs to continuously move forward and combine with egg cells to realize the transportation and recombination of genetic material.
The egg cell is the female reproductive cell. It is formed in the female ovary. The egg cell is generally spherical or oval in shape and larger than the sperm, about 0.1 mm. And it does not keep moving like the sperm. Before motility, most egg cells are immobile. Egg cells contain a large amount of nutrients, and the cytoplasm contains yolk composed of proteins, lipids and other substances. There is a zona pellucida on the outside of the egg to prevent foreign sperm from entering the inside of the egg. Moreover, the formation of egg cells is far more complicated than the formation of sperm. The oogonia in the reproductive organs undergo primary oocyte , secondary oocyte and other forms before forming a real egg cell.
After both sperm and egg cells reach maturity, under appropriate time conditions, the sperm and egg cells meet in the female fallopian tube, and the sperm and egg cells recognize each other, and the sperm passes through the egg cell to achieve the fusion of the two. The genetic material is integrated to complete the fertilization process of and .
The entire fertilization process is divided into three stages and . The first stage is when the capacitation sperm contacts the egg cell and releases acrosome enzyme, which dissociates the corona radiata from the egg cell. The second stage is the acrosome reaction , that is, the acrosome enzyme erodes the corona radiata and the zona pellucida. The third stage is when the cell membrane of the sperm fuses with that of the egg cell, and then the nuclei of the two fuse together, resulting in a zona pellucida reaction.
Through the understanding of sperm and egg cells, and the analysis of their fertilization reactions, we will find that half of the genetic material of egg cells comes from the father and half from the mother. So what are the factors that determine its gender?
Factors that determine the gender of offspring
With the further development of modern science, scientists have discovered that the human body contains 23 pairs and 46 chromosomes, of which 22 pairs and 44 chromosomes are autosomal . There is a pair of chromosomes that specifically control gender. We call it sex chromosomes . The composition of male sex chromosomes is All Y chromosomes come from male .
During the fertilization process, both sperm and egg cells will halve the number of their own chromosomes through meiosis, and then the two sex cells with half the chromosomes will be combined through fertilization to form a new fertilized egg.
In other words, the sex chromosomes of the egg cell will only provide one X no matter how meiosis divides, while the sex chromosomes of male sperm will appear in two cases: For women, if the male sperm passes the Y chromosome to the offspring, the offspring will be male. Speaking of this, the decisive element of the offspring's gender seems to be only related to males .
However, researchers from Stockholm University and University of Manchester analyzed the process of human fertilization, and they seemed to have discovered a new factor that affects the gender of offspring, that is, eggs can also affect gender in some way. .
Before, scientists' understanding of eggs was "passive acceptance". Eggs hardly move, and no matter how they undergo meiosis, they will only produce X sex chromosomes. However, this new study found that the egg will "attract" the arrival of sperm through various occurrences.
After the egg matures from the ovary, it will be surrounded by egg fluid containing protein. If the sperm from the father wants to touch the egg, it must pass through this egg fluid. The egg fluid not only contains protein, but also Many other chemicals can induce sperm to gather towards the egg. After receiving the signal from the egg fluid, the sperm will accelerate its movement and avoid detours to speed up the fusion with the egg. After discovering the special effects of egg fluid, scientific researchers conducted various studies on egg fluid .
Researchers collected egg fluids from many women and sperm samples from men through various methods, and then they carried out relevant experiments. They put the egg fluid from a woman together with the sperm from different men, including the female lover's sperm, and then after a period of sperm movement, they counted the sperm accumulation in the egg fluid. The results of the
experiment were beyond the expectations of the researchers. Egg fluid has different attraction abilities for different sperm, and does not treat all sperm "equally". The experimental results show that the egg fluid does not necessarily attract the sperm of the lover, but instead attracts 40% more sperm from other people than the sperm of the lover. experimental data shows that egg fluid attracts sperm that are more robust or that match its own genetic material.
This experiment fully demonstrates that the egg can still make certain choices about the sperm that combines with it. egg fluid attracts different sperm. If it prefers Y chromosome sperm, the offspring will be male, and vice versa.
It can be said that eggs can still affect the gender of offspring to a certain extent.
Although current statistics show that the birth rate of male babies is slightly higher than that of female babies, and the number of male babies is about 11.02 to 1.07 times that of females , in the process of combining sperm and eggs, the probability of male and female It is still roughly 1:1, and the influence of external environment and temperature may slightly change the ratio.
After the above-mentioned experimental studies by scientific researchers, we have discovered that both sperm and eggs can affect the gender of offspring to a certain extent. This is a scientific research result. However, there are many various so-called "folk remedies" that can directly determine the gender of offspring. These are completely unbelievable.
Folk remedies are not trustworthy
The most widely circulated on the Internet is the acid-base constitution theory . This theory believes that eating more alkaline organisms to build an alkaline body can give birth to a boy, and eating more acidic foods to build an acidic body can give birth to a girl. In fact, this theory is a misunderstanding of the acid-base environment. The Y chromosome that determines male gender can indeed be more active in an alkaline environment, but the pH value of the human body's internal environment is constant and will not occur due to changes in diet. Big changes.More serious folk remedies even propose using alkaline baking soda water to rinse the vagina to increase the possibility of giving birth to a boy. This method can cause female diseases and not only harm the female body, but also increase the risk of pregnancy. Difficulty.
However, during the process of preparing for pregnancy, both couples must pay attention to the rules of life. Once an irregular life occurs, it can indeed affect the quality of male sperm. If a male works overtime and stays up late for a long time during pregnancy preparation, it will lead to a decrease in sperm motility, affect the life span and movement speed of sperm, and make it difficult for them to pass through the thick cervical mucus. "Meet" with the same egg. Therefore, it is of great significance for both men and women to have a healthy body and a regular life for the quality of fertilized eggs in their offspring.
Therefore, through scientific experimental analysis, it is found that the gender of offspring is determined by sperm and eggs. Both can affect the gender of offspring to a certain extent. This also negates various so-called folk "recipes" from the side. .
At the same time, we must also be deeply aware of the issue of equality between boys and girls, and prohibit all kinds of gender discrimination.
Author: Yaya Proofreading Editor: Xiaowan
