http://jezebel.com/5871982/today-is-the-day-when-everyone-makes-babies
From the article:
"It turns out that the period between Christmas and New Year's Day is a time when a huge amount of babies are conceived. A study found that 9 percent of all conceptions in the United States occur in December. And the most common birthday is September 16th, which just happens to be about 9 months from right now. So, who knows what unexpected gifts this Holiday season could end up delivering to you."
I am surprised by this. I get that people have fun on New Year's Eve but I thought that it was a super stressful/busy time of the year so I thought sex or TTC wouldnt be on the top of to do list.. I would have thought that most people TTC or have a more active sex life during the summer.
Thoughts?
Re: TTC or just getting busy? Now is the time.
9 percent of babies conceived in december isn't that much more than average. If you divide the year evenly, each month should see 8.333333 percent of conceptions. if you factor in that december is a 31-day-month and february is only 28 days, december should see about 8.6 percent of conceptions, so it's only .4 percent more than it should be.
My food blog
What I'm looking forward to in 2012:
Eating our way through (northern) Italy on vacation
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DI don't have an article to quote, but I actually thought "common" birth dates were regional. I have read this somewhere, but since I don't have an article handy, I'll provide the example that among people from very warm regions (like the tropics), for example, a higher percentage of them are conceived in the fall/winter when it's cooler out, particularly in places where air-conditioning is not as widespread.
I find this a humorous considering the number of IN babies we've had in the last month.
The only thing I can think of is there are certain days that most people always have sex on. Xmas, Valentine's day, NYE, and Birthdays.
I am only going on a conversation I had a few years ago with some friends. Those are some "automatic getting some days"...
This is what I would think, too, combined with the fact that some people have off between Xmas and NY, making it more likely that they find time. Plus with NY's there's the alcohol factor.
And NLfoodie - can you run a quick significance test on that 0.4%? :-)
2012 Reading Challenge
When I was at work in the US, in our office of 35 people, 9 had birthdays in August and another 6 in September.
When I commented on those numbers, I always got the same response "December is a very cold month."
When I came to Australia, and noticed that almost all of DH's friends, including DH and me, have birthdays in August or September, (3 on August 27!) I commented to MIL that it can't be for the same reason as in the US that so many birthdays fall then. She gave it some thought and came to the conclusion that many people get married in December and January and many more people are on holiday for the season.
Obviously the holiday season is the time for baby making.
I know that I was a honeymoon baby. My parents got married 3 January, I was born 12 October, 9 days and 9 months after my parents got married.
I once heard that there's almost always a local surge in births 9 months after a major snowstorm. Apparently when it's cold and you can't go anywhere, people get busy. Especially when the power is out, so there's nothing else to do!
On a less amusing note, my dad works in the newspaper business, and he said that there's always a huge surge in obituaries right after Christmas. Apparently having something to look forward to helps the elderly keep going that extra little bit.