New Study Claims Birth Month Can Affect Your Baby’s Health, May Babies Are Pretty Much Screwed

If you’re reading this and your birthday is in November, or your baby was born in November, or your baby is due in November: congratulations! You are all set up for success in life, according to a new study that determined a baby’s health can be directly tied to its birth month. In that same respect, if you’re a May baby or having one…uhhh…sorry about that. According to the same study, your kid is totally effed.

Research has shown that you’re not supposed to smoke, booze, ingest random chemicals, etc. Things we already know. But something we (read: I) didn’t know was that the month in which a child is born or conceived can also have an effect on their health and wellbeing down the road. Hannes Schwandt, PhD, an economist at Princeton University’s Center for Health and Wellbeing, says:

”The scientific literature goes back almost 100 years linking birth season to almost anything under the sun, from income to life expectancy to height.”

Based on Schwandt’s study, here’s what we know about May babies: they have a 10% higher chance of being born prematurely, thanks to cold and flu season’s affect on pregnant women who come down with the sickness. The study also shows that babies born in May have a high risk of Vitamin D deficiency due to wintertime gestational periods. Therefore, springtime babies typically have twice as many autoreactive T-cells, potentially dangerous cells that could later turn against the body’s own immune system, putting them at a higher risk for multiple sclerosis later in life. Yikes! Crazy.

Babies born in November are basically the Olympian triathlete of babies, apparently. The study shows that a baby born in November can run at least 10% faster, jump 12% higher, and are 15% more powerful than a child of the same age born in April. Schwandt attributes this to higher Vitamin D levels in mother who are pregnant during the summer months.

But don’t panic! Schwandt says at the end of the day, just ignore all of those scary statistics! Because you can feel safe enough to be fruitful and multiply whenever you want as long as you are a reasonably healthy pregnant woman. Oh, good. Because I was sitting here panicking about what my own July birth odds for developing MS are. I’m also attributing my total lack of athletic motivation to my mom’s penchant for shade and Virginia Slims, thank you very much.