Some Like It Hot

American Demographics, Jan 1, 2002

While Americans are busy making babies during the cold winter months - according to the National Center for Health Statistics, September is the month with the most deliveries - a study published last July in Human Reproduction, the journal of the Eastern Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (Oxford University Press), reveals that women in the Czech Republic are most likely to conceive in the heat of the summer.

According to researchers in the United Kingdom who conducted the study, May is the month during which the most children in the Czech Republic are born. Speaking to the Sunday Times (of London), Martin Bobak an epidemiologist at the University College London and co-author of the study, said, "The [birth] rate peaked in March to May and that roughly corresponds to conception during the summer holiday." This peak is most pronounced among married women and mothers with a university education. Czech women who were married and had a university degree were 20 percent more likely to give birth in May than those women without degrees. Apparently they were doing more on holiday than kicking back with a good book.