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Indian mums in Canada have more sons | A new study has found that mothers born in India but living in Canada are significantly more likely to have male babies for their second and third births compared with women in Canada. Researchers from St. Michael’s Hospital
and the University of Toronto conducted the study. “Our findings raise questions
about why there are more male liveborns than female liveborns among Indian couples
who have had two or more previous babies,” said Dr. Joel Ray, St. Michael’s Hospital
and University of Toronto. For the study, the researchers looked at all singleton
live births in Ontario — 766 688 births — between 2002 and 2007. They used the
mother’s country or region of birth to categorize each birth, with 486 599 from
Canada, Europe (58 505), India (31 978), China (23 818), rest of East Asia (18
971), Pakistan (18 018), South Korea (3663) and others. They calculated male:female
live births by country or region and the number of previous deliveries the mother
had at the current birth (0, 1, 2, 3 or more). They also looked at the country
of birth for fathers. For most women, the male:female ratio was 1.05, and the
ratio did not change with increasing numbers of previous births. However, women
from India and South Korea who had previous children were significantly more likely
to give birth to males. For Indian-born women with more than one prior child,
the male:female ratios were even more pronounced. Previous research conducted
in India and a study looking at Canadian census data for South Asian and East
Asian immigrants show similar patterns of higher male: female ratios linked to
increasing numbers of children, especially when the prior offspring were girls.
“Whether this difference in sex ratios was the result of prenatal sex selection
should be determined by direct study of practices of sex-selected preimplantation
and pregnancy termination among individuals from various world regions,” said
the researchers. “In addition, an analysis of the duration of residence in Canada,
access to fertility care, family income and parental preferences would be of value
in describing factors that might influence prenatal sex selection,” they concluded.
The study was limited to singleton births and could not account for any sex selection
in multiple pregnancies from fertility treatments. The researchers also could
not determine the sex of older siblings born to the same mother. The findings
were published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).
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