Some of you have emailed me asking about what things we should stay away from during pregnancy, in order to avoid changing the normal course of a baby’s development. If you remember from the article about gender identity and sexual preferences see here, one of the most important factors in an individual’s development is represented  by sex hormones like androgens and oestrogen. They begin acting on our bodies in early pregnancy and even slight modifications in their functioning may dramatically affect our personality, preferences and behaviour as adults. 

Given external factors can greatly influence these hormones, it is very important to know which ones fall into the category of risk factors and therefore possibly affect our development. As expected, these factors pose a threat during pregnancy, which is why pregnant women should be particularly cautious about their life style. 

It has been suggested that taking aspirin while pregnant might increase the chance of the mother giving birth to a “more masculinised girl”. This is due to the actions of aspirin as a cyclooxygenase inhibitor; cyclooxygenase enzyme converts arachidonic acid into prostaglandins which apart from their well-known role in immune reactions, also seem to be involved in sexual behaviour. A decrease in the production of these compounds in female rats is thought to account for their man-like behaviour. 

Other factors that present a risk of having a lesbian daughter are smoking and synthetic drugs. The exact mechanisms of their actions is still unclear and it might turn out that they are not in fact such a threat. But it’s always better to prevent something rather than be oblivious to it. 

Also, stress during pregnancy can induce homosexuality in children, due to raised levels of cortisol which affects the production of sex hormones. So women caring a baby should try to stay as calm and relax as possible, even though that sounds like such a hard task especially when you’re pregnant! 

If you have any other questions or you would like to add your thoughts to this post, do not hesitate to leave a comment.