Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-22dnz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T06:33:10.465Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mental Disorder and Season of Birth—A Southern Hemisphere Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Gordon Parker  and
Megan Neilson
Gordon Parker
Affiliation:
School of Psychiatry, University of Mew South Wales, The Prince Henry Hospital, Little Bay, NSW 2036, Australia
Megan Neilson
Affiliation:
School of Psychiatry, University of Mew South Wales, The Prince Henry Hospital, Little Bay, NSW 2036, Australia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Studies on the relationship between season of birth and mental disorder have been substantially confined to northern hemisphere regions. Such studies have generally found an excess of winter births of schizophrenics, and variably an excess of winter births of manic-depressive and mentally retarded patients. In the present study information on sex, diagnosis and date of birth was obtained on all 20,358 patients first admitted to psychiatric facilities in New South Wales between July 1970 and June 1974 and born in New South Wales. The collective 1962–71 monthly live-births for New South Wales were used as a control. A significant winter excess was found for the female schizophrenic group, while a significant spring excess was found for neurotic patients, most marked in those with anxiety neurosis. It is hypothesized that the relationship between schizophrenia and winter birth is consequent upon a greater sensitivity of schizophrenics to those physiological factors which determine conception in the general population.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 129 , Issue 4 , October 1976 , pp. 355 - 361
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1976 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Cowgill, U. M. (1966) Season of birth in man. Contemporary situation with special reference to Europe and the southern hemisphere. Ecology, 47, 614—23.Google Scholar
Dalén, P. (1968) Month of birth and schizophrenia. Acta Psyckiatrica Scandinavica, Suppl. 203, 48—54.Google Scholar
Dalén, P. (1975) Season of Birth. Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Hare, E. H. (1975a) Manic-depressive psychosis and season of birth. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 52, 69—79.Google Scholar
Hare, E. H. (1975b) Season of birth in schizophrenia and neurosis. American Journal of Psychiatry, 132, 1168—71.Google Scholar
Hare, E. H. & Price, J. S. (1969) Mental disorder and season of birth: comparison of psychoses with neurosis. British Journal of Psychiatry, 115, 533—40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hare, E. H., Price, J. S. & Slater, E. (1974) Mental disorder and season of birth: a national sample compared with the general population. British Journal of Psychiatry, 124, 81—6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lang, T. (1931) Zur Frage: Geisteskrankheit und Geburtsmonat. Archiv für Rassen- und Gesellschafls-Biologie, 25, 42—57.Google Scholar
Lyster, W. R. (1968) The sex ratio of live births in integrated but racially different populations, U.S.A. and Fiji. Human Biology, 40, 63—8.Google ScholarPubMed
Kline, N. S., Hannon, V., Meisner, M., Laska, E. & Siegel, C. Month of birth of one quarter million admission to U.S. psychiatric institutions. (To be published.) Google Scholar
Macfarlane, W. V. (1969) Seasonality of conception in human populations. International Journal of Biometeorology, Suppl 4, 167—82.Google Scholar
Ødegård, O. (1974) Season of birth in the general population and in patients with mental disorder in Norway. British Journal of Psychiatry, 125, 397—405.Google Scholar
Parker, G. B., Ashby, D., Delfendahl, S., Goodwin, P., Hameiri, D., Hicks, S., O'Donnell, M. & Yap, R. (1974) Mental disorder and season of birth. British Journal of Psychiatry, 125, 329—30.Google Scholar
Pasamanick, B. & Knobloch, H. (1961) Epidemiological studies on the complications of pregnancy and the birth process. In Prevention of Mental Disorders in Children (ed. G. Caplan). New York: Basic Books, Inc.Google Scholar
Rantakallio, P. (1971) The effect of a northern climate on seasonality of births and the outcome of pregnancies. Acta Paediatrica Scandinavica, Suppl 218, 1—67.Google Scholar
Sarkar, D. (1969) Variation in the sex ratio at birth. Indian Journal of Paediatrics, 36, 30—4.Google Scholar
Slatis, H. M. (1953) Seasonal variation in the American live birth sex ratio. American Journal of Human Genetics, 5, 21—33.Google ScholarPubMed
Stevenson, A. C. & Bobrow, M. (1967) Determinants of sex proportions in man, with consideration of the evidence concerning a contribution from X-linked mutations to intrauterine death. Journal of Medical Genetics, 4, 190—221.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.