Friday, April 9, 2010

A Segulah for Boys

I personally know of 4 women who were expecting babies either right before or on Pesach. One delivered her baby right before yom tov, with a yom tov bris. The other three delivered on yom tov. Given all the statistics that get thrown around about how there are more girls born in Klal than boys, I'm happy to report that all four of these women had healthy baby boys, yup all four. (And a mazal tov to my reader MiriamP on the birth of her son on Pesach.)

Of course the sampling size is awfully small but I'm thinking that there must be some kind of strange relationship between P words going on: Pregnancy plus Pesach=male children. Those who are so worried about the inbalance in Klal between males and females just might want to do a bit of family planning involving Pesach; it's apparently a segulah for having a boy if your due date is Pesach-time. Hey, I didn't say it was logical, just that there seems to be a segulah in the making.

Note: a friend to whom I reported this seeming phenomenon was not particularly surprised but did offer an explanation. It was the male children, as reported in the Haggadah, that were targetted by the Mitzrim. Having only male children on Pesach seems to be a way of getting back at the Mitzrim, a sort of finger raised in the air.

5 comments:

SubWife said...

Interesting... My son was born a week before Pesach and we had a Pesach bris. I wonder what docs in Maimonedes would say about that though...

Aliza said...

Funny you should post this. Over yom tov there were 5 mazel tovs announced in shul for babies being born and all 5 were boys. The comments in shul were also that it must have something to do with pesach. And we don't live in your area so I'm assuming our 5 aren't the same as the 4 you mention. Strange.

Anonymous said...

Someone on orthonomics blog mentioned today that she had a baby boy 9 days ago--would make it a Pesach birth. Seems weird but you may be on to something here. I wonder what the hospital records would show for pre-Pesach and on Pesach births for frum women?

NW said...

Don't think you're going to find any scientific data to back this up. It's not when the boys are born that would need to be looked at but when they are conceived. For being born before or on pesach you are looking at mid-July to end of August conceptions. None of my professors in genetics ever discussed a correlation between month of conception and sex of the child. Not saying that it might not be there somewhere but it isn't known about now.

Miami Al said...

NW, no, not true at all, it could entirely be related... not saying it is, just disputing your conception issue.

The days of Pesach and the days before, have different foods and stresses than the rest of the year. If (not saying that this is true, just if) those stresses cause labor to start for women carrying boys, but NOT for women carrying girls, then you could get more Pesach Births and/or Brises without changing the fall conception.

More likely that there is a random distribution of births, and whenever there is a clump of boys or girls, people look for a superstitious reason, instead of just understanding that if you flip a coin constantly, you'll get runs of 4/5 heads or tails, and there is no shift in gravity that moves the coin flip.