BabyBPM.com Heart Rate FAQ - The five questions posted most recently: Heart Rate Gender Predictor http://www.babybpm.com/faq <![CDATA[What is "Gestational Age"]]>
  • Gestational age is the term doctors use for the amount of time since conception.
  • Generally, your ultrasound picture will have the age printed right on it.  You can that date when using BabyBPM.
  • Note: Even though ovulation and conception happen some time after the date of your last menstrual period, doctors measure gestational age in "LMP" days. This is because most women know the date of their last period but don't know when they ovulated. Contrary to popular wisdom, women don't always ovulate 14 days after their period. Because of this, "LMP" days for measuring gestational age isn't the most perfect way to measure.
  • Note: Doctors ALSO can "estimate" the gestational age in "LMP" days by measuring your baby via ultrasound. For example, in early pregnancy, they can measure the "crown rump length" (the length from the top of the head to the baby's bottom) and figure out how old the baby is. When they do this, they give the result in "LMP" days, assuming conception 14 days from LMP. Especially in early pregnancy, when the heartrate is changing every day, this difference in how things are measured can cause error in this site's calculation.
    • ]]>     http://www.babybpm.com/faq/index.php?action=artikel&cat=1&id=1&artlang=en Fri, 04 Nov 2011 02:50:00 GMT     <![CDATA[What is the old wives' tale that says heart rate predicts gender?]]> The traditional "old wives' tale" is that where the measured heart rate is above 140, the baby is a girl is a girl, but if the measured heart rate is below 140, the baby is a boy.  Unfortunately, the old theory doesn't take into account that heart rate varies over the duration of pregnancy.

    Heart rate starts off low, and keeps getting faster and faster until about 9 weeks, then starts getting slower for the duration of pregnancy.  BabyBPM is different than the traditional old wives' tale because it tries to compare your baby's heart rate to the average heart rate for your baby's gestational age. 

    Using the old "above or below 140 bpm" theory, every baby would be a girl if you measured at 9 weeks!

    ]]>     http://www.babybpm.com/faq/index.php?action=artikel&cat=1&id=2&artlang=en Fri, 04 Nov 2011 02:48:00 GMT