This Bogus “Winter Babies” Research is Starting to Get Interesting

The idea that babies born in winter months are less intelligent is raising its ridiculous head again.

But a recent Wall Street Journal article that my son-in-law sent me is surprisingly good. It describes how sound research methodology is being applied to the question of winter babies and intelligence.

Factors that were studied include:
Mother’s educational level
Age that a teen drops out of school
Vitamin D (winter babies get less sunshine)
Pesticides in surface water

This article changed me from a cynic on this topic to an interested observer.
To see all of my Winter Babies posts, click here.

Research Status: Babies Born in Winter are Less Intelligent

This research is still as bogus as when I blogged about it last month, but since my son-in-law says that simply mentioning this topic will draw major attention to my website....well hey, I'm always up for a good experiment. Folks, correlation is not causation and please click here to read how I approched this topic previously.

Can we please discuss some research that is more interesting?
Like Liz Szabo's article on just how early children get rhythm. It's a small study, but a fascinating one. 2 and 3 day old infants can perceive musical patterns and even take note when a drummer misses a beat! The researchers suggest that it's possible that babies are born with a musical sense because it helps communication.
It's a short and fascinating piece.

Babies Born in Winter Months Are Less Intelligent?

In a 12/22/08 article in USA Today Rita Rubin described new research that suggests, on average, that winter babies grow up to be less educated, less intelligent, less healthy and lower paid than people born in the spring. Many of the reader comments were from people projecting (and rejecting) this research based on their own lives and those of their children or siblings.

Click here to read the article.

Here are my comments which I posted to the USA Today website:

This is interesting research that reminds me of the family size and intelligence debate. As family size increases, intelligence of children tends to decrease. Researchers found that it is not that more kids means less time and money to educate kids, rather that lower IQ parents tend to have larger families.

Also, can everyone who is angry at this research study please remember that correlation is not causation. You've heard it many times; that's because it's true.
If this same data for birth month are analyzed for day of the week and it shows that Tuesday babies have the highest IQ, would you tell your doctor to schedule a c-section for Tuesday?

And if the data show that the smartest babies were born between 3 and 6am, and your water breaks at 3 pm, do you tell your Ob/Gyn to put on the brakes for 12 hours? Clearly not. It's just some interesting research; not to worry.