A mayor in a Poland town where only girls have been born for the last 12 years is offering a reward to the first couple that has a boy.
Miejsce Odrza?skie, in the south of Poland near the Czech border, has a population of about 300. But for the last twelve years, locals say, no male babies have been born.
What’s the probability of that? We wonder.
And we are not the only one as the town is now under scrutiny from experts to see if there is a deeper-rooted issue or if it is just an anomaly, according to the Metro UK.
“It has been going on for several decades,” Tomasz Golasz, head of the volunteer fire brigade, told English-language news site First News. “I came to the village, took a local girl for my wife and we had two daughters. I would like to have a son but it’s probably unrealistic.
“My neighbour also tried and have two daughters,” Golasz adds. “I don’t think women give birth to boys here.”
Mayor Rajmund Frischko, the father of two girls himself, is diving into historical records to see if there have been any similar occurrences in the past.
“We looked into it further, reviewing birth certificates. I think that what the older residents say is confirmed,” he says. “Girls are constantly born and the birth of boys is rare. Explaining this puzzle will not be easy.”
While Frischko is tight-lipped on the exact nature of the reward, “I assure you that the gift will be attractive,” he says.
Statistically speaking, the preponderance of male and female babies should be fairly equal in a given population. A 2008 study at the University of Newcastle found that fathers’ genes played a greater role in determining the gender of a child.
“Whether you’re likely to have a boy or a girl is inherited,” lead author Corry Gellatly explains. “We now know that men are more likely to have sons if they have more brothers but are more likely to have daughters if they have more sisters. However, in women, you just can’t predict it.“
