Natality and the blackout

CURRENT Pertinent

Natality LYLE Buflalo,

B. New

OPINION comments

and the blackout BORST York

Daily birth records at five Manhattan Nov. 9-10, 1965.

in New hospitals

York City discloses a 30 per cent increase in live births on Aug. 7, 1966, 270 days after the blackout of

T w o H u N D R E D and eighty days is the almost universally accepted period of human gestation when counted from the onset of the last menses. Assuming fertilization to occur 2 weeks later, the period becomes 266 days to be compared with nine synodic lunar months of 29.53 days or 265.8 days. Menaker and Menaker’ have demonstrated a small but significant lunar correlation for 500,000 live births in a group of Manhattan hospitals over 112 lunar cycles, an interval of 9 years. The birth rate increased 2.5 per cent on the fourteenth day of the lunar month. Controlled statistically significant data on human gestation are rare, but the blackout of Nov. 9-10, 1965, appears to be an exception. Electric power failed at 5:27 P.M. over a large part of the mid-Atlantic states. Power was not restored until the following day in Manhattan and parts of the Bronx, whereas in Brooklyn and Queens power was restored at various times during the evening and, in Richmond, almost immediately. Recreation patterns were interrupted throughout the city and particularly in Manhattan with the From the Astronomy, at Buffalo.

Department of State University

Physics of New

emergence of more primitive patterns of recreation (or rather creation). A peak of births occurred 270 days later on Sunday, Aug. 7, 1966. Fig. 1 shows the daily birth rate at five Manhattan hospitals, both public and pri-

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and York

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2

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3

Fig. 1. Percentage occurring in five l-l?, 1966. 422

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’ ’ ’ ’ 1 1 ’ ’ 4 5 6 7 8 9 IO II 12 AUGUST l9G6 of live births in New York Manhattan hospitals from

City Aug.

Natality

vate, normalized to the number of live births for each day in the five boroughs and expressed as the percentage of New York City live births. Such normalization is required to remove systematic variations according to the day of the week. It is evident that August 7 is a very special day. The mean value Aug. 1-12 is 9.7 per cent including August 7 but 9.5 per cent excluding that day. The average deviation from the mean (excluding .4ugust 7) is 0.45 per cent so that the birth rate on August 7 represents an increase of one-third over the mean or 7 mean deviat ions. The peak on August 7 cannot be attributed to a lunar effect, since the moon was at third quarter, 7 days beyond full. The sharpness of the peak is surprising for a random

REFERENCES

t.

Menaker, & GYNE~.

Menaker, 1959.

A.:

AM.

J. OBST.

blackout

423

error in 270 days would be approxinratrly half a month. Such a peak is only understandable if a counting mechanism exists. It is not likely that a biologic clock mmsures time independent of the diurnal cycle. If the ideal time of parturition (as indicated by Menaker) is at full moon, fertilization must occur 3 or 4 days before full moon. when lunar illumination is approaching its maximum. The last menses would occur at new moon, 40 weeks before parturition. Such lunar synchrony has been observed in lower primates.2 The author wishes to express his appreciation to Dr. L. Weiner and Mrs. F. Nelson of the New York City Bureau of Records and Statistics for making detailed data available.

2. W., and 77: 905,

and

Cogwill, I?‘. M., and Hutchinson, 48: 238, 1962.

Bishop, G. E.:

A., Proc.

Andrew, R. J., Nat. .Qx!, SC.