When it comes to getting pregnant, there's an app for that. A bunch of them actually. These help a woman track her body's signals so she knows when the time is ripe to conceive.
Apps like Kindara, founded by a Boulder husband and wife team, and Glow, founded by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, have been a godsend to over 10,000 couples who were struggling to start a family, according to testimonials from these companies. Plus, the apps can be used as birth control, to prevent pregnancy, the app makers say.
But, developer Alain Hanash thinks he's got an even better take on the pregnancy app: one that can help you select the baby's gender.
He's about to release an app called StorkDiet, based on research such as a study of 740 first-time mothers done by the Universities of Exeter and Oxford. That study found women who ate more calories, sodium, and calcium were more likely to have boys. Women who ate less of those nutrients were more likely to have girls.
While diet stacked the odds, it wasn't a sure thing: 44% of the women who ate the "boy" diet had girls.
The app prescribes a nine-week diet that suggests foods rich in the appropriate nutrients, based on the research. It also tracks other factors that contribute to conception. It will cost about $10 and will be available for iPhone and Android.
Although the app's creators believe it will have an 81% success rate, take that with a grain of salt — or maybe avoid the salt, if you're hoping for a girl.