If you’re curious about the sex of your unborn baby (or babies!), or how many babies you will have, one test claims to provide you with the answers. But how accurate is it? Here’s an insight into whether the ring gender test really works.
Ring gender test
Studies have found up to 80% of women want to know the sex of their baby before giving birth. The ring gender test to predict an unborn baby’s sex is a popular old wives tale for those wanting a sneak peak of what’s to come.
In the good old days, women had to wait until their baby’s birth to learn what sex their baby was. For some, their baby’s gender was a matter of great importance, given male heirs were much more preferred in many families.
These things aren’t so important now, and today, the ring gender test offers a harmless low-risk trick to help you predict what your family might look like in future.
Of course, some parents do hope for certain sex and may experience gender disappointment if it doesn’t work out as they’d hoped. Check out our article if you’re experiencing feelings of gender disappointment.
How to do the ring gender test
The ring gender test can be performed in two ways, both of which involve threading your wedding ring (or other rings of significance) onto a piece of string, hair or favourite necklace.
Here’s how to do the ring gender test:
- Lie comfortably on your back, and have someone else hold the threaded ring above your baby bump.
- Wait for the ring to slowly move on its own. The idea is that it should either swing back and forth in a straight line for a girl or a circle for a boy.
How to predict how many children you will have (pregnant or non-pregnant woman):
- Place your left hand on a flat surface
- Hold the threaded ring above your left hand and bring it to rest on top of your hand
- Lift the ring and gently swing it between each finger of your left hand, from your pinky to your thumb.
- Immediately trace back the other way, thumb to pinky, and end where you began holding it above the centre of your hand
- The ring will swing back and forth in a straight line (girl), or in a circle (boy). This is the sex of your first-born child.
- Sit the ring on top of your hand again. Then repeat the process to see how many children you will have!
- Continue repeating the test until the ring comes to a complete stop. This means there are no more future babies to predict.
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Can you do the ring gender test on yourself?
The best practice with the ring gender test is to get someone else to hold the ring over your bump. That way you get to relax and focus on what the test reveals, without worrying about subconsciously affecting the ring or test result.
It really is too easy to swing the direction of the ring to your preferred sex of if you hold it yourself. Keep reading below to find out how ‘ideomotor movements’ can impact your result.
Ring gender test for twins
After discovering they’re pregnant with twins, some women have done the ring gender test to find out their babies’ sexes.
If you know the positions of both twins, you could circle the ring over each of the babies, and see what you get. Worth a shot!
Ring gender test and miscarriage
The ring gender test is very low risk, and there’s no evidence to show it’s linked to miscarriage.
However, if knowing your baby’s gender is important, there are medical methods to do this:
- You can wait for your mid-pregnancy development scan, which usually happens around 20 weeks.
- The non-invasive prenatal test (NIPT) which can determine the sex of your baby. Research shows the NIPT is more than 99% accurate at predicting a baby’s sex. Find out more about the NIPT test here.
- CVS and amnio: Both chorionic villus sampling (CVS) and amniocentesis are invasive diagnostic tests that analyse a baby’s genetic makeup and screen for chromosomal abnormalities. These tests are usually recommended for women who are high risk, especially since they’re invasive (which elevates your risk of miscarriage).
Timing is important for these tests. Check out our article when can you find out the sex of your baby? for more information.
How accurate is the ring gender test?
So, the million-dollar question … how accurate is the ring gender test?
Many people swear by the ring gender test and are certain it offers some kind of magical answer.
Of course, old wives’ tales designed to predict your baby’s sex are no more reliable than simply taking a guess. You have a 50/50 chance of it being right!
There’s no evidence that suggests the ring gender test is anything more than a simple novelty.
Ideomotor movements
Another reason the ring test is not considered very accurate is due to a phenomenon known as ideomotor movements. These types of movements are small muscle movements that occur without you even knowing they are happening. Many people believe these muscle movements are due to your subconscious.
This means if your partner is helping you with the ring test and really, really wants a little boy, then he may subconsciously move his hands back and forth to cause the ring to move back and forth.
The muscle movements would be so small neither of you would be able to see the muscle movements or know they’re happening.
Maybe have a few different people do the ring gender test on you and see how many get the same result.
Other old wives’ tales
Predicting the sex of unborn babies has been around for generations. Old wives’ tales have been handed down for generations – there’s no end to the ways you can guess your baby’s sex. And our brains are wired to believe in this folklore, as humans like to have a sense of control.
There are many ways to predict the sex of your baby, including monitoring your baby’s fetal heart rate, the shape or size of your baby bump or the condition of your hair. Check out our article, 16 old wives tales and gender predictions, to find out more ways to predict your baby’s sex.
