Suffering from heartburn? Your kindly neighbor will tell you that means you are going to have a hairy baby. Carrying your baby high? You’re having a girl! Carrying low? Your mom will declare she is thrilled to finally be getting a grandson.

Modern technology allows today’s moms and moms-to-be to get up close and personal with their baby bellies via 3- and 4-dimensional ultrasounds. Parents not only have the chance to learn the sex of their baby, but they might even get lucky enough to capture a picture of the baby sucking his or her thumb.

For moms like Michelle Steinhebel of Macomb Township, MI, amniocentesis ruled out the possibility of genetic disease, and also confirmed that she was having a boy. But that didn’t stop Steinhebel, age 38, from having fun with some of the predictions shared by friends and strangers alike.

More fun than science
There might not be any science behind most old-wives tales, but it hasn’t stopped anyone from believing in them.

“Pregnancy is such an amazing thing, it’s kind of fun to predict. I had heartburn and yes, I had a baby with a lot of hair,” said Steinhebel, mother to 2-year-old Trevin. “It’s just fun to think about the predictions.”

But what you hear also depends on who you talk to.

“I was sick a lot and people told me that meant I was having a boy. I also carried low. I knew people were right because of the amnio,” Steinhebel said. “But ask another pregnant woman and she was probably told that being sick a lot meant she was having a girl.”

For Zenoba Bell, pregnancy and her mother and grandmother’s beliefs meant avoiding garlic, not sitting in any body of water, and putting shiny pennies in her shoes.

“Put a penny in your shoes to keep your feet and ankles from swelling, that is what they used to say,” said 57-year-old Bell of Southfield, MI. “But it had to be a shiny, new penny to avoid swelling.”

Bell, whose daughter Tiffany is now 37, was also told to limit her exercise and avoid lifting her hands above her head or she would risk choking her unborn baby with the umbilical cord. Science has since disproved this belief and women are now encouraged to stay active during pregnancy. But science has never really been a big part of the tradition surrounding old-wives tales, anyway.

“There were so many foolish things, I can’t remember them all now,” said Bell. “You weren’t supposed to eat garlic because it would make your baby fart and supposedly it would give you bad breath because the child would be farting inside of you. And water would draw the baby down if you took a bath…isn’t that silly?”

Other notable beliefs that Bell was subjected to include not being able to sit on any hard objects for fear of giving her baby a hard head and not going to burials because her relatives believed Bell’s daughter would then be more likely to die young.

But perhaps the most outrageous old-wives tale was the one that kept her land-locked while pregnant.

“You weren’t supposed to swim because fish larvae could get up inside your you-know-what and travel right up to the baby,” Bell recalled with a chuckle. “I don’t know if that meant you’d have a fish with the baby or what…”

He loves me, he loves me not
Ypsilanti, MI-based midwife Helen Stockton, 30, equates the ongoing fascination with old-wives tales with picking the petals off of flowers and resting the fate of a high school crush with the last petal. Does he love me? Or love me not?

“It’s more comforting to see which way grandma’s wedding ring spins than to have an ultrasound performed because the old-wives tales are more personal and representative of our beliefs,” Stockton said. “Medical culture, unless you are working in it, just seems more foreign and bizarre. We are separated from it.”

But there is a familiar sense of belonging with old-wives tales that have been passed down from generation to generation.

“To some degree, I think some people want to trust in their families and their cultures more than technology and modern ultrasound,” said Stockton. “That, and people always have a 50-50 shot of being right either way.”

According to Stockton, who has been a practicing midwife since 2004, the only old-wives tale to have scientific backing is the one suggesting couples have sex to bring on labor if they are anxious for the baby to arrive. The rest, she says, are just kind of fun.

More tales from the womb

• Pregnant women should not take baths. This is only partially true. While it is perfectly safe for most pregnant women to bathe and relieve some of the stress of carrying a child, anyone whose amniotic sac (bag of water) has broken should stay out of the tub to minimize the risk of infection. Also, pregnant women should avoid baths or hot tubs above 100 degrees.

• Mayan sex predictor: One popular belief stems from the Mayan practice of determining the baby’s sex by taking the mother’s age at conception and the year of conception. If both were even or odd, it would be a girl. If one was odd and one was even, the baby would be a boy. A similar Chinese sex predictor is also popular.

• You have to drink a lot of water or your baby will get dirty: The amount of water you drink only affects how hydrated you are. And while pregnant women need more water than the average non-pregnant person, not drinking enough has no effect on how clean your baby is in the womb.

• Cravings: Sweet or salty? According to this old-wives tale, sweet means pig-tails and party dresses and salty means junior is on his way.

• The sty in the eye myth: This tale says that anyone who denies a pregnant woman a craving, will get a sty in their eye. No scientific backing for this tale, but just to be on the safe side, it is probably best to just ask for directions to the nearest 24-hour supermarket when a craving occurs.