App Claims It Can Help Couples Conceive Girls

From artificial insemination to in vitro fertilization, there's no shortage of ways that technology is helping couples who want to have children. But a new iPhone and Android app called StorkDiet/Girl claims that it can people have a baby girl for a fee of just $9.99.

Alain Hanash, who created the app, used data from a study conducted by two British universities that tracked the eating habits of 740 women who were pregnant for the first time. The study found that 56 percent of the women who followed a low-sodium, low-calcium diet had baby girls. The app, following that approach, tailors a nine-week diet for women who are hoping to get pregnant with a girl.  “It is a natural and scientific based guide that includes a specific maternal diet and conception timing program," according to the app's description.

More on Yahoo Shine: 7 crazy myths for predicting your baby's gender But Dr. Gilbert Webb, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at the Mercy Hospital in St. Louis, is wary of putting too much stock in at-home methods of gender selection. “It may offer some slight edge but not a whole lot,” Webb tells Yahoo Shine.  He warns prospective parents not to think that this app – or anything else – is 100 percent guaranteed. Although the creators of StorkDiet claim that they have an 81 percent success rate, the evidence is inconclusive, according to some medical experts.

More on Yahoo: Couple keeps baby's gender under wraps A Maastricht University study had participants eat plenty of spinach, tofu, and nuts like almonds and cashews, while strictly avoiding high-sodium foods like olives, cured meats, and potatoes in order to produce female offspring. The study boasted a 77 percent success rate in producing girls, but once that number was broken down to account for women who didn’t follow the diet closely enough or who didn’t follow the strategic rules for when to have sex, the data began to fall apart.

Dr. Webb adds that there’s nothing wrong with hoping for a baby of a particular sex, but he cautions against being too attached to one or the other. “If someone is realistic about these techniques, and says 'we'd prefer a girl, but we'd be OK with a boy,' that’s fine. But if they have a strong feeling and latch on to these things with strong wording, they can become neurotic,” he says