One of the most common pieces of information that genealogists search for is the birth date of a relative or ancestor. Sometimes, genealogists discover that an ancestor was born on a holiday. A study shows that fewer women give birth on Halloween than on Valentine’s Day. Were any of your relatives born on Halloween?
Researchers at the Yale School of Public Health did a study that helped researchers to learn why there are fewer births occurring on Halloween than there are on Valentine’s Day. Could the meanings of these holidays be influencing the pregnant mothers?
Halloween and Valentine’s day were selected for this study for many reasons. Both of the holidays are ones that have widespread participation. The majority of people in the United States celebrate these two holidays in some way, (even if all they do is purchase cards or candy).
Neither of these two holidays are a national holiday, or are primarily religious in nature. Other holidays, like Christmas, for example, could include a reduction of hospital staff. This is not the case on Valentine’s Day or Halloween.
Researchers looked at over three million birth records from the United States. They focused on a two week period surrounding each of the two holidays. The records were from the years 1996 through 2006. The mother’s delivery method was also considered.
The results showed that there were more babies born on Valentine’s Day than on Halloween. Valentine’s Day had a 3.4 % increase in induced births, a 3.6 % increase in “spontaneous births”, and a 12.1% increase in cesarean deliveries. This refers to the seven days before and after Valentine’s Day.
Not nearly as many babies were born on Halloween. There was a drop of 18.7% in induced births, a drop of 16.9% in caesarean deliveries, and a drop of 5.3% in “spontaneous births” on the day of Halloween, (compared to the other days in this two week period).
Researchers suspect that the reasons behind the data are psychological. Valentine’s Day is all about love, flowers, hearts, and “warm fuzzies”. Halloween, on the other hand, makes people think of death, ghosts, demons, and other scary concepts. Which one sounds like a better birthday for your brand new baby?
The results indicate that the negative connotations of Halloween are precipitating a pregnant woman’s will to resist giving birth. On the other hand, the very positive perception of Valentine’s Day could be causing women to influence the hormonal mechanisms in their bodies to speed up the birth of a baby. The women don’t have to necessarily be consciously aware of their thoughts about these two holidays in order to speed up or slow down their birth of their baby.
Genealogists who are searching for birth records might want to take this study into consideration. If your family has Celtic heritage it could mean that very few of your ancestors were born around Halloween. The Halloween we celebrate today has Celtic origins.
Image by Adam Kerfoot-Roberts on Flickr