When you look at our graphics, you probably noticed immediately: the same pattern appears in all the illustrations. A particularly dark line runs vertically downwards on the first day of each month, from January to October. Further lines can be found vertically on the 10th, 15th and 20th. On the horizontal September is a dark line. Why is that?
The easiest to explain is September: most children are conceived in late autumn and Christmas time and are therefore born in July, August and especially at the end of September. “Before couples decide to have children, they want to talk about this decision,” says Martin Bujard, research director at the Federal Institute for Population Research. “They typically have the time for this during the summer holidays.” It then usually takes a few months for the women to become pregnant, says the professor. And so it happens that most children are conceived in the first months of winter and September is the month with the highest birth rates.
