Old Wives' Tales Gender Quiz: Boy or Girl?

How to play it at the shower

No prep and nothing to print. Ask the parent-to-be first whether pregnancy questions are welcome, and let her skip any tale she'd rather not answer. Then pick one of three ways to play.

1. Everyone on their own phone. Drop this page's link in the group chat. Each guest answers the 12 tales about the parent-to-be and shares their result card. After the reveal, the guests whose tales called it right take the prize.
2. Pass the phone. Choose "Pass the phone" above the first tale. One phone goes round the room and each guest answers one tale, asking the parent-to-be when they need to. A hand-off screen keeps the next guest's turn fresh, and the room's tally is the verdict.
3. The parent-to-be plays. Before she starts, everyone calls out whether the tales will say boy or girl. She answers on one phone, and whoever guessed the folklore's verdict wins.

Planning the whole party? The gender reveal party games guide covers what to play before and after the big moment.

The 12 old wives' tales for boy or girl

What each tale claims. Families tell a few of these both ways; this is the version the hospital round-ups in the sources repeat.

What's actually known about each tale

One line per tale, from studies and hospital articles we read. Where sources disagree, both are shown.

1. 1. Carrying high or low

   In a Johns Hopkins study of 104 pregnant women who did not know the sex, the shape of the bump was not systematically related to whether the baby was a boy or a girl. Perry et al., 1999

2. 2. Basketball or all-over bump

   This tale is famous enough to title a study: "Are women carrying basketballs really having boys?" Its answer was no; bump shape did not track the baby's sex. Perry et al., 1999

3. 3. Sweet or salty cravings

   We found no study linking cravings to a baby's sex. A Cleveland Clinic ob/gyn puts the general rule plainly: no physical change in pregnancy indicates the baby's sex. Cleveland Clinic · UT Southwestern

4. 4. Heart rate over 140

   Across 477 first-trimester scans, girls averaged 151.7 beats per minute and boys 154.9, not a significant difference. A 2023 meta-analysis of five studies agreed the heart rate is not a reliable sex test. McKenna et al., 2006 · Nouri et al., 2023

5. 5. Morning sickness

   Sources disagree a little. A 1999 Lancet report found more girls born to mothers with hyperemesis gravidarum, the severe form of pregnancy sickness, while the Johns Hopkins study found ordinary morning sickness did not track sex. A pattern across many pregnancies cannot call one baby. Askling et al., 1999 · Perry et al., 1999

6. 6. Glow or breakouts

   Cleveland Clinic retells this legend (a glow means a boy, acne means a girl), then quotes its ob/gyn: there are no physical changes during pregnancy that indicate the baby's sex. Cleveland Clinic

7. 7. Moody or calm

   UnityPoint Health lists this with the other gender tales and calls the whole set purely for fun. A baby's sex is set at conception by an X or Y chromosome from the sperm. UnityPoint Health · Cleveland Clinic

8. 8. The dark line

   The dark-line tale is another one UnityPoint Health files under superstitions that are purely fun, and Cleveland Clinic's ob/gyn says no physical change in pregnancy reveals the baby's sex. UnityPoint Health · Cleveland Clinic

9. 9. Ring on a string

   No study supports it. A UT Southwestern ob/gyn lists the ring swing among old wives' tales that are not scientifically proven, which makes it a fair party game: anyone can win. UT Southwestern

10. 10. The key test

    Sex is decided at conception by whether the sperm carries an X or a Y chromosome, so nothing about how a key gets picked up can reveal it. It is still a good laugh. Cleveland Clinic

11. 11. Chinese gender chart

    Tested against 2,840,755 Swedish births, the lunar calendar method was no better at predicting a baby's sex than tossing a coin. Villamor et al., 2010

12. 12. Her gut feeling

    The one twist: in the Johns Hopkins study, guesses based on dreams or feelings were more likely to be right than guesses based on bump shape, though overall the women were not good predictors. Perry et al., 1999

How the quiz adds it up

• Each tale you answer adds one sign to Girl or Boy, following the claims in the chart above.
• Skipped tales count for neither side, so a tale that doesn't apply never tips the result.
• The side with more signs is the folklore's verdict. Equal signs is a tie.
• Nothing is weighted, random or scored by the evidence. The verdict only reports what the tales claim, which is the joke: none of them can actually tell.