Summer Babies Are Healthier As Adults, Study Finds

A recent study involving over half a million people revealed how more sunlight and higher levels of vitamin D exposure could be beneficial in the third trimester of pregnancy, Elsevier reported.

Children with summer birthdays are more likely to be healthy adults than those born during the winter, a new study contends.

For women, there seem to be even more benefits, with the study finding that summer baby girls actually start their periods later than those born during the rest of the year – which is an indicator of female adult health.

Scientists have speculated that this might have something to do with vitamin D. Our bodies need sunlight to make vitamin D so we tend to get more of the nutrient during the summer months. Previous studies have indicated that child development and the moment a child reaches puberty are linked to medical condition later in life.

The birth month can affect both birth weight and the point at which a girl starts puberty, factors that can have an impact on a woman’s overall health as an adult, the researchers say in their study published in the journal Heliyon.

“Our results show that birth month has a measurable effect on development and health”.

Earlier studies have found links between the month or season of birth and a person’s health in later life.

What happens in utero then leads to differences in early life – including before birth – that can influence health in later life. Early puberty, what doctors call precocious puberty, in girls and boys (who start puberty before age 10) can lead to struggles with emotional challenges and mental health issues.

To conduct their research, the team used data from the UK Biobank study – a major national health resource – to compare the growth and development of about 450,000 men and women.

Dr. Perry concluded, “We don’t know the mechanisms that cause these season of birth patterns on birth weight, height, and puberty timing”.

“This is the first time puberty timing has been robustly linked to seasonality”, said Dr. Perry. He added, “Our results show [that the] birth month has a measurement effect on development and health”. Yet, while we cannot control our birth months, there are other factors that we can control such as vitamin D intake in mothers.

The study also picked up variations in educational achievement based on month of birth with academic success rising sharply in the autumn, believed to be caused by the difference in ages of the school year.