Old Wives Tales About Pregnancy

Did you ever wonder how some of these old wives tales began? Some of them are quite funny while others are more sinister. It is my goal within this article to share some of the more common ones from my childhood as well as those passed on to me one way or another.

These old wives tales are going to deal with pregnancy and childbirth, as it seems most of us has children or wants them. Either way they are sometimes fun to read and tell others. You can use these questions as trivia for a baby shower or just check them out and perhaps they will bring a smile to your face.

When I was a child, my mom's friend Shirley who was a frequent visitor to our home had an interest in determining the sex of the baby. One day she asked my mother for a needle which she threaded and then she would dangle this threaded needle over the arms of us girls and she would enchant us with our future babies. Perhaps she was just passing time but for us girls we had a blast finding out what sex our babies would be as well as naming them. How did Shirley and others like her determine the sex of a baby as told by a threaded needle? Simple it depended on the way the needle swung as it dangled over the mother. If the needle swung side to side, it predicted a girl yet if it swung in a circle, it was a boy. An ultrasound is a more reliable prediction as long as you have a baby who is cooperating at the time.

There are all kinds of old wives tales which are supposed to reveal the sex of the baby and here is a list of some of the more common ones.

Dark Nipples are supposed to indicate a boy! The reason some nipples get darker is because of more hormones running through the pregnant body. Not only may the nipples get darker, any spot such as a birth mark, a mole, and beauty marks may get darker. A dark line may run from your stomach to your pubic bone and this is the result of the hormones as well. That dark line called a linea nigra, in no way indicates that the mother will need a c-section.