Conception

Mating season: How the changing seasons affect human fertility and pregnancy

On the contrary, it is in December that there are the fewest births in Quebec.

Least births by month, 2001-2013, Statistic Institute of Quebec

Year

12th place

11th place

10th place

2003

February

November

December

2004

February

December

November

2005

February

December

January

2006

February

December

January

2007

February

December

January

2008

February

January

November

2009

February

December

November / January

2010

February

December

November / January

2011

February

January

April

2012

February

April December / January
2013

February

November March

February consistently sees the fewest children born, typically because it’s always the shortest month of the year. December, meanwhile, is almost always in the bottom-three, closely followed by November and January.

A quick calculation shows that we’re least fertile in April. Strange, considering that spring has always been considered mating season for humans. With nature reawakening, the days getting longer and our winter clothes shedding, it’s inexplicably weird that this would be the case.

Pros and cons

Every season has its advantages and disadvantages for both pregnancy and delivery. For example:

Pregnancy and birth during spring/summer

Pros

  • Summer clothes are prettier and more feminine, even while pregnant—scratch that, especially while pregnant!;
  • Visible bellies are very fashionable, even more so on warm days;
  • Pregnant women are even more radiant in the summer sun;
  • It’s nicer to be off work and outside the house (because there’s still lots of work inside it);
  • It isn’t as cold when we get up at night to feed our babies and change their diapers;
  • We’re proud to walk about with our strollers in tow, while passersby admire our babies;
  • Our babies aren’t bundled up, so we get to see their chubby little legs jutting out of their rompers;
  • We’re always more inclined to lose weight during the summer.

Cons

  • It’s hot outside. And when you’re pregnant, the heat seems 100 times worse;
  • Since many nurses and doctors are on holiday, you may end up giving birth without your doctor;
  • Breastfeeding when it’s hot out quickly becomes uncomfortable for both mom and baby. If you can, freshen up in a lukewarm bath, shower or pool a few minutes before feeding. Also, keep a cool washcloth and a tall glass of water nearby.
  • Children conveived during summer don't do as well in school

If you want your future children to perform well in school, apparently September and April are the months you should be conceiving between.

Research led by Dr. Paul Winchester and his team at the Medical University of Indiana gathered data from 1,667,391 school children to find out if there was a correlation between when children were conceived and how they performed in school.

The results, presented in Toronto during the Pediatric Academic Societies Annual Meeting, showed that kids who were conceived between May and August are weaker in math and in languages than those who were conceived between September and April. These results, however, don’t take into account origin, gender or class.

So how do we make sense of these results? For Dr. Winchester, one obvious conclusion is that pesticides, used more frequently during summertime, play an important role. His team discovered a link between lower school grades and higher levels of pesticides and nitrates found in surface water during the summer period.

Although this study “strongly suggests” that pesticides and nitrates play an important role in the development of the brain, it doesn’t exactly prove it per se. Further investigation will be needed to conclusively understand the influence of this type of chemical environment on the development of fetuses.

Source: Le Journal Santé, May 3, 2007


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