Giuliana and Bill Rancic reveal sex of baby-to-be. Would you?

Giuliana and Bill Rancic told guests at their baby shower Sunday that their bundle of joy will be a boy.  Americans, it turns out, are split pretty evenly when it comes to finding out the sex of a baby ahead of time. 

Giuliana and Bill Rancic have spilled the beans about the gender of their soon-to-be baby, on the way, thanks to a gestational carrier.

After months of hush hush, the reality television star couple revealed to guests at their baby shower yesterday that the bundle of joy will be a boy, according to celebrity news reports.

“We’re beyond excited,” Today Entertainment quotes Bill as saying.

Which got us thinking...  how many parents find out the sex of their baby before it is born?

This is a hotly contested topic, of course. And as with pretty much everything about pregnancy, childbirth, and the “right” way to welcome new life into this world, people seem to feel perfectly entitled to offer their opinion about what others should do.

(Don’t believe me? Just take a look at the mass scrutiny of the pregnant Jersey Shore star Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi's footwear. The when-will-she-stop-wearing-platforms debate has raged for months now.)

A quick Google search on the “should you find out the gender of your baby” question reveals scores of forums, chat groups and blog posts with impassioned “do” and “don’t” missives.

The reasons against range from “when else will you ever have this big a surprise?” to “don’t let yourself be biased by gender.” The pro camp tends to say that the birth is a big enough surprise as it is, thanks, and that some extra planning info is much appreciated. Besides, it’s easier to pick names, refer to the child as something other than “it,” and start laying down the law to excited grandparents about Disney Princesses and Power Rangers when you know the sex.

And as it turns out, people in the United States are divided about this question. It’s not just the crazy World Wide Web. In 2007, a Gallup Panel poll found that 51 percent of Americans say they would wait until the baby is born to find out the sex, while 47 percent said they would want to know before hand.  (The rest had no opinion.)

The preference shifted within some groups. More than 6 in 10 Americans 18 to 34 years old, for instance, said they would like to find out ahead of time, as did the majority of parents with young children. Meanwhile, older Americans, Americans who frequently attend religious services and Catholics were more likely to wait.

The Rancics, then, are in pretty wide company.  (And our opinion here at Modern Parenthood, for the record, is that people should do whatever they want with this one.)

Baby boy Rancic is due at the end of the summer; given the way celebrity news works, we’ll sure hear more about the little mister before then.