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Yes, it's also extremely unlikely. The actual distribution in developed countries is not uniform: there is a spike at the end of September (because many more p

by bambax 2y ago

Yes, it's also extremely unlikely. The actual distribution in developed countries is not uniform: there is a spike at the end of September (because many more people make babies at or around New Year's Eve) and a considerable drop on Dec. 25th (because people will avoid that date and provoque the birth some days before in case it might happen). Also, on the site there is a huge spike on Nov. 15 which, incidentally, is the birthday of the author: maybe they tested it many times?

profsummergig 2y ago
Why do people not like having their child be born on Xmas?
- mrandish 2y ago
  It's that some small percentage of births are intentionally induced for various medical reasons. Sometimes because the baby is full term but labor is not starting on its own yet. Other times an OB will attempt to rotate a full term baby that's in breach position to avoid needing a C-section surgery. Successful or not, this rotation procedure has a chance of triggering labor (which is why they wait until the baby is at or close to full term before trying it). Bottom line: hospitals are short staffed on Xmas so they set scheduled procedures which may induce labor for the day before or the day after whenever possible which preserves their limited capacity on Xmas for unscheduled births and emergencies.
- KineticLensman 2y ago
  My sister’s birthday is a few days after Christmas. She hated this as a child because once her birthday was over there was almost a whole year without any prezzies
Miraltar 2y ago
15th november are valentine's babies, I'm not surprised about this spike
- boomboomsubban 2y ago
  Any such spike would be over weeks, not heavily concentrated on one day. It's clearly people taking the quiz twice to see what it says if you match the creators birthday.
kqr 2y ago
> The actual distribution in developed countries is not uniform This is a nice story I've heard many times, but is it actually true? Like what are your statistical sources here?
- bambax 2y ago
  US births by day data is available here: https://github.com/fivethirtyeight/data/tree/master/births https://github.com/fivethirtyeight/data/tree/master/births For the period 2000-2014 the number of births by month, divided by the number of days in a month, is: 1 31 5 072 588 163 631.87 2 28 4 725 693 168 774.75 3 31 5 172 961 166 869.71 4 30 4 960 750 165 358.33 5 31 5 195 445 167 595.00 6 30 5 163 360 172 112.00 7 31 5 450 418 175 819.94 8 31 5 540 170 178 715.16 9 30 5 399 592 179 986.40 10 31 5 302 865 171 060.16 11 30 5 008 750 166 958.33 12 31 5 194 432 167 562.32 365 62 187 024 170 375.41 The difference isn't huge but it's significant. There were on average 180k birth in Sept. vs 165k in April and 170k in December. Edit: also, here, a graph per day: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fmebamp8b5w7c1.png https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fm... (The source is mentioned but I did not verify it directly).
  - kqr 2y ago
    The scale on that plot is cut off to emphasise small-ish variations. It is practically uniform.
    - bambax 2y ago
      The point of the plot is to show the drop on Dec. 25th; but the numbers are unrelated to the plot and do show actual variations from month to month.

by bambax 2y ago

profsummergig 2y ago

Why do people not like having their child be born on Xmas?

mrandish 2y ago
It's that some small percentage of births are intentionally induced for various medical reasons. Sometimes because the baby is full term but labor is not starting on its own yet. Other times an OB will attempt to rotate a full term baby that's in breach position to avoid needing a C-section surgery. Successful or not, this rotation procedure has a chance of triggering labor (which is why they wait until the baby is at or close to full term before trying it). Bottom line: hospitals are short staffed on Xmas so they set scheduled procedures which may induce labor for the day before or the day after whenever possible which preserves their limited capacity on Xmas for unscheduled births and emergencies.
KineticLensman 2y ago
My sister’s birthday is a few days after Christmas. She hated this as a child because once her birthday was over there was almost a whole year without any prezzies

Miraltar 2y ago

15th november are valentine's babies, I'm not surprised about this spike

boomboomsubban 2y ago
Any such spike would be over weeks, not heavily concentrated on one day. It's clearly people taking the quiz twice to see what it says if you match the creators birthday.

kqr 2y ago

> The actual distribution in developed countries is not uniform This is a nice story I've heard many times, but is it actually true? Like what are your statistical sources here?

bambax 2y ago
US births by day data is available here: https://github.com/fivethirtyeight/data/tree/master/births https://github.com/fivethirtyeight/data/tree/master/births For the period 2000-2014 the number of births by month, divided by the number of days in a month, is: 1 31 5 072 588 163 631.87 2 28 4 725 693 168 774.75 3 31 5 172 961 166 869.71 4 30 4 960 750 165 358.33 5 31 5 195 445 167 595.00 6 30 5 163 360 172 112.00 7 31 5 450 418 175 819.94 8 31 5 540 170 178 715.16 9 30 5 399 592 179 986.40 10 31 5 302 865 171 060.16 11 30 5 008 750 166 958.33 12 31 5 194 432 167 562.32 365 62 187 024 170 375.41 The difference isn't huge but it's significant. There were on average 180k birth in Sept. vs 165k in April and 170k in December. Edit: also, here, a graph per day: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fmebamp8b5w7c1.png https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fm... (The source is mentioned but I did not verify it directly).
- kqr 2y ago
  The scale on that plot is cut off to emphasise small-ish variations. It is practically uniform.
  - bambax 2y ago
    The point of the plot is to show the drop on Dec. 25th; but the numbers are unrelated to the plot and do show actual variations from month to month.