You might think that roughly the same number of children are born every day in Quebec… but that's not entirely the case. There is also a “seasonality of births” in humans, which varies depending on the region of the world and time. In Quebec, as elsewhere, the situation has changed in recent decades.
Published at 1:16 am. Updated at 8:00 a.m.
Change your sheets and light your candles, ladies and gentlemen: December is now the month in which the most babies are conceived in Quebec. Nine months later, in September, Quebec's maternity wards are therefore at their busiest. The difference is not small: we are talking about 15% more births in September than in December, the weakest month.
Has it always been like this? NO. From the beginning of the 1980s to the end of the 1990s, the peak of births tended to be in the months of April and May. So a design blitz took place over the summer holidays. At that time there was also a summit in September, although of lesser importance.
“There was a bit of a shift in the early 2000s,” observes demographer Anne Binette Charbonneau of the Quebec Institute of Statistics. At the beginning of spring there is a decline in births: the April peak has disappeared. And the September peak has become a little more pronounced. » Change happened quietly but surely in these four decades.
The months of July and August also deserve a special place in the list of the most productive months. “In fact, there are more births during the entire summer season today than in the 1980s,” summarizes Anne Binette Charbonneau.
Two angles
Why has the seasonality of births changed? The Quebec Statistics Institute cannot give a precise answer, stressing that it is difficult to separate the consequences of behavioral, environmental and cultural changes. The socio-demographer Laurence Charton, for her part, allows herself a few hypotheses. In her opinion, the question must be approached from two angles: on the one hand, from the moment of conception and on the other hand, from the moment of birth.
By design, summer vacation used to be a great time, perhaps because couples simply spent more time together. Today they may have more control.
It's been a while, but couples can also decide a priori when to have their child by controlling their fertility through the use of contraceptives.
Laurence Charton, Professor at the National Institute of Scientific Research
And perhaps today we think more in vacation mode than in family mode in summer, she summarizes.
Women seem to tend to wait until the end of summer before starting to plan for a baby. The researchers tracked a cohort of North American women who wanted to conceive naturally, and the majority of them began in September, October and December. And it was late November, early December when most of them got pregnant.
“I remember hearing in the interviews I was able to do: We're going on one last big trip before the family and then sending the baby on its way,” says Professor Laurence Charton. There is also an environmental factor: According to studies, the heat in summer reduces sperm concentration and thus fertility in men.
If we approach the question from the other side – the time of birth – interesting ideas also arise. First, there is the idea of avoiding giving birth in the middle of winter, a time of year when stroller rides are less convenient and viruses are on the rise. This reality in Quebec is probably not unrelated to the fact that the birth trough occurs in the cold season, an observation that has not changed since the 1980s.
Looking for a daycare center
Montrealer Karine Jean-Louis gave birth to her first child in September. Their daughter was due to be born on September 29th (but she was born in early October). And that is no coincidence. Why, September? One word: daycare. “I admit that I calculated quite a lot to make the apartment search easier,” admits Karine Jean-Louis. Maternity leave lasts one year and most places become available in August when the kindergarten leaves. This is also Laurence Charton's hypothesis. “I conducted interviews in Gaspésie with women who gave birth during the pandemic and I can tell you that their biggest stress, even more than the pandemic, was daycare space,” she says.
Finally, the parents also plan the birth according to their work schedule. Karine Dubois acknowledges how lucky she was to be able to choose (“it's a luxury”), but she had her three children in June, July and August so her partner could take extended paternity leave. “Work is slower in the summer,” she explains. When Laurence Charton looks at birth statistics by region, she finds that the North Coast, Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine and Nord-du-Québec have proportionately more births in the colder months than elsewhere. “It is probably related to less important professional activities in these regions,” she believes.
age at school
In Quebec, September is the birth month par excellence, and children in September are the youngest in their school class. In Sweden, the youngest in the class are those born in December. And Swedish parents would have the opposite reaction: Since the youngest children would have less chance of academic success, the Swedes would try to avoid births in November and December.
Religious dimension
Births have also peaked in France. While it used to be between February and April, it is now in July. And this change may be related to the abandonment of religious practices. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, births between February and April corresponded to ideas about the end of Lent and the time when marriages were more celebrated. Today, the July peak would result from couples' preference.