The human sex ratio from conception to birth

Abstract

We describe the trajectory of the human sex ratio from conception to birth by analyzing data from (i) 3-to 6-d-old embryos, (ii) induced abortions, (iii) chorionic villus sampling, (iv) amniocentesis, and (v) fetal deaths and live births. Our dataset is the most comprehensive and largest ever assembled to estimate the sex ratio at conception and the sex ratio trajectory and is the first, to our knowledge, to include all of these types of data. Our estimate of the sex ratio at conception is 0.5 (proportion male), which contradicts the common claim that the sex ratio at conception is malebiased. The sex ratio among abnormal embryos is male-biased, and the sex ratio among normal embryos is female-biased. These biases are associated with the abnormal/normal state of the sex chromosomes and of chromosomes 15 and 17. The sex ratio may decrease in the first week or so after conception (due to excess male mortality); it then increases for at least 10-15 wk (due to excess female mortality), levels off after ∼20 wk, and declines slowly from 28 to 35 wk (due to excess male mortality). Total female mortality during pregnancy exceeds total male mortality. The unbiased sex ratio at conception, the increase in the sex ratio during the first trimester, and total mortality during pregnancy being greater for females are fundamental insights into early human development.he sex ratio at conception in humans is unknown, despite hundreds of years of speculation and research. Investigations of the sex ratio date back at least as far as Graunt (1) who described a net excess of male births (2). By the late 1800s, it was clear that more males than females die during later pregnancy (3). Beyond these facts, the demographic and genetic dynamics of the sex ratio from conception to birth are poorly resolved.The claim that the conception or primary sex ratio (PSR) is more male-biased than the birth sex ratio appears often in textbooks (4, 5) and in the scientific literature (e.g., refs. 6-11), usually with little or no description of evidence. Estimates of the PSR in these studies are typically 0.56 (proportion males) or greater. Many fewer researchers have claimed that the PSR is unbiased or slightly male-biased (12-16). A handful of researchers has claimed or implied that the PSR is female-biased (17-19) or claimed that the PSR cannot be estimated due to lack of appropriate data and/or methodological problems (20)(21)(22).Previous estimates of the PSR have no meaningful basis in data from the time of conception (or within at least a month of it). At best, the PSR has been estimated via backward extrapolation from data on induced or spontaneous abortions, fetal deaths, or live births; most of the non-live-birth data stems from the second or third trimester of pregnancy. In addition, even if one ignores the fallibility of extrapolation, biased estimates of the PSR based on spontaneous abortions and fetal deaths have usually been regarded as arising from unbiased samples of a population of embryos or fetuses having a biased PSR. The alternativ...

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