If I crave meat and fizzy drinks, that means I am having a boy, and if I crave dairy products, it means I’m having a girl.
If boys are grouped into the category “snakes and snails and puppy dog tails,” and girls in the category “sugar and spice, and everything nice,” it wouldn’t be a far stretch to connect meat, associated with the building of muscles, and “fizzy,” with its association to high energy, with a boy. Likewise, it would make sense to connect dairy, much of which is milk based and comes from the female species, with a girl. How grounded is this myth in reality?
If you have never craved meat before, but crave it now that you’re pregnant, your body probably needs iron. As for the carbonated, fizzy drinks, we tend to think you probably had similar cravings when you weren’t pregnant. Now, with a baby in your belly, it could be that you are simply thirsty or slightly dehydrated and the carbonated beverages sound delicious. If you are craving the soda because of the sugar, then it would be advisable to switch to diet soda and limit the amount you drink to one or two servings per day. (We will address the pros and cons of diet sodas later.)
In rare cases you may be craving regular soda, not so much for the fizz but because you may have diabetes and sugar is not getting into your tissues. Usually these cravings will be accompanied by other symptoms like frequent urination and an unquenchable thirst. What if you crave dairy products much often during pregnancy dietary intake ?
First of all, there is a myth that you need to consume dairy products when you are pregnant in order to get the proper amount of vitamin D. The milk industry in this country and their genius marketing ads have us all believing that we need milk for strong bones, and since the baby inside of you is forming bones, then you must need to drink more milk, right? We are the only species of mammals that drinks milk outside of infancy, and the milk we drink is not human milk, it is bovine.
Since the milk you’re craving is cow’s milk, does that mean you are having a baby cow ??! Of course not. Does that mean you’re having a baby girl ? No, it doesn’t. There just isn’t a connection. What your body is doing, in all its innate wisdom, is directing you to something you need. Most likely you’re craving milk because you need the vitamin D and calcium. Other than iron, your prenatal vitamin should compensate for any deficiencies.
The myth that cravings for milk products means you’re having a girl probably developed because milk is a food your baby needs and only a woman can provide this type of nutrient to the developing baby. Remember, when you hear myths relating to gender in pregnancy, think back to the old Mother Goose nursery rhyme that associates boys with the rough and tumble and girls with sweet, nurturing traits.