Deep Sea Diving Results in Female Offspring?

[enjoytheview]

This morning, my mother told me about an interesting story she heard on the radio.
They were discussing the Dutch royals, Prince Frederik and Princess Mary and the birth of their daughter. It had been something like 50+ years since there was a princess in the royal family.

A man identifying himself as a Professor (of what, i don't know, i received the story second hand) claimed that the reason that Frederik's wife gave birth to a daughter, was due to the fact that he was a diver in the Navy SEALs and, since the birth of Prince Christian, he has been involved diving with the Navy in Denmark. I couldn't find any evidence to back up the claim that he has been diving since Christian was born however.
Apparently, deep sea divers tend to produce female children whilst they are divers, and after they stop diving, the first child is usually a male. The only reasoning that was offered is that the pressure underwater has some influence and makes female children more likely. The theory holds some water if you take my family as an example. My father was a diver. His wife had a female child whilst he was a diver, and a male after he quit diving. He has since had 4 other children, 3 female and 1 male. Although I don't believe the idea has any merit.

The only web source I could find on the matter was a document from the Australian Defense Force, which states it as being only a myth. The original document is in PDF form, but the above is a HTML link. I didn't have time to read the entire document, but a quick glance showed they did a test on the matter which showed no evidence that the claim is true.

I was wondering if anybody on here has heard anything about this, or can offer another family example because my mother seemed pretty convinced by what the man had said. Convinced enough to wake me up about it.

Apologies if this has been posted before, I did a quick search of the forum and could find nothing about it.

 

[CapelDodger]

I recall a story from some while back about Israeli fighter pilots fathering a high proportion of sons. Not fighter pilots in general, or pilots of specific designs, or Jewish fighter pilots, just Israeli ones. Of course the sample size and period involved were tiny, and the correlation failed to materialise in subsequent years. But it became an item on a slow news day, after which it was out there with a life of its own.

Given a myth such as the one you raise, people are only reminded of it when the correlation occurs. The triggers are "diver" and "daughter", so "diver had son" rings no bells. Thus we get observational bias.

The 50+ years without a daughter in a family is hardly that remarkable anyway. (There's reported to be a female line in France that has borne no sons for several centuries. That's remarkable, to my mind, and does suggest causation.) If it's not coincidence (and thus irrelevant) some familial influence and high pressure must act by a very similar mechanism but in opposite senses. Not frickin' likely, IMO .

 

[athon]

'Y' sperm are supposed to be slightly more fragile, so if there was a statistical bias, I wouldn't be surprised. It doesn't explain why the first child after you stop diving would be male, though.

My ex's father is a radiologist, and in his profession there is an actual documented bias towards female children (she was one of two daughters).

Athon

 

[Ove]

1. The story seems utterly ridicoulus.
2. They are DANISH!! And Denmark is some distance from Holland. And yes Frede is a navy commando but to my knowledge he hasn't dome any deep sea diving. The diving they do is mostly jumping overboards from dingy's and swimming ashore, not realle deep sea besides it is in Denmark, the waters sorrounding us are not really THAT deep