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Hum. Reprod. Advance Access originally published online on March 7, 2008
Human Reproduction 2008 23(5):1187-1192; doi:10.1093/humrep/den079
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Month of birth and offspring count of women: data from the Southern hemisphere

S. Huber1,4, R. Didham2 and M. Fieder3

1 Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Vienna, Austria 2 Population Statistics, Statistics New Zealand, Christchurch, New Zealand 3 Department of Anthropology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

4 Correspondence address. E-mail: susanne.huber{at}vu-wien.ac.at

BACKGROUND: Several studies indicate that the month of birth affects later reproductive output of women in the Northern hemisphere.

METHODS: To investigate whether a comparable but time-shifted effect is also present in the Southern hemisphere where the seasonal variation of the environment is reversed, we analysed the association between birth month and offspring count in post-reproductive New Zealand women. We further examined whether this association differed with the hemisphere of birth as well as the socio-economic background.

RESULTS: We find that the association between birth month and offspring count of New Zealand women born in the Southern, albeit not Northern, hemisphere is a mirror image of the pattern reported from Austrian women: on average, women born during the Southern hemisphere summer months have fewer children than women born in winter. This association is highly significant within the lowest family income category but insignificant within higher family income categories.

CONCLUSIONS: This study provides evidence for a causal link between the seasonality of the environment during the pre- and perinatal period and offspring count of women. It further indicates that the main contribution of the birth month effect found in the present study comes from the lowest family income category.

Key words: birth date/season/hemisphere/female/reproduction

Submitted on June 1, 2007; resubmitted on February 10, 2008; accepted on February 22, 2008.


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