Pulse Diagnosis for Pregnancy and Baby Gender

Chinese medicine practitioners (CMP) diagnose patients mainly through four examinations, which are observing, listening and smelling, asking questions as well as touching.

1. Observing the color and brightness of the face, tongue, eyes and other parts of the body. Listening to the patient’s voice and breathing.
   
2. Smelling if there are unusual odors from the body of the patient especially the breath.
3. Checking the body conditions of the patient by asking questions, such as eating and bowel habit, sleeping pattern at night, and sensibility to temperature.
4. Touching and feeling the warmth of hands. Palpating pulses at the wrists.
   
   
   
   

It is the fourth diagnostic technique that the CMP can feel the development of a new life, as a lot of changes occur in the cardiovascular system after conception. Changes include an increase in the amount of circulating blood, increase in the oestrogen levels, increase of heart rate to 10-15 bpm, increase in basal metabolic rate and more. With such changes, CMP can detect pregnancy even earlier than using a pregnancy test tube.

Pregnancy

The most commonly used pulse location is the radial artery. Chinese medicine practitioners divide waist pulse into three sections, which are the cubit (chi), the bar (guan) and the inch (cun). At the early stage of pregnancy, the pulses at the inch position of the left hand come and go smoothly, and happen almost slippery. At the same time, the beats at the cubit and the bar positions may also be detected smooth and slippery. As the fetus grow, the slippery pulse in left inch position, and both cubit positions will become stronger and more obvious.

Baby Gender

You probably heard about the Chinese Gender Chart, which has been used to predict the gender of an unborn child. The result of the prediction however is still questionable, as there is no scientific backup for the chart. Gender detection by pulse diagnosis, on the order hand is more concrete and scientific.

In his book Pulse Diagnosis*, Li Shi Zhen pointed out that,

"If the fetus is predicted as a boy, the left cubit pulse feels more slippery and rapid and the abdomen becomes swollen like the base of a wok. If the fetus is predicted as a girl, the right cubit pulse feels more slippery and rapid and the abdomen becomes swollen like a bamboo wheelbarrow."

If the slippery pulses in both cubit positions are pretty much the same, the woman could be carrying twins. To make the outcome more accurate, diagnosis must be made in the morning. Of course, only experienced Chinese medicine practitioners can precisely diagnose the gender of unborn babies.