Suicide risk linked to birth month
Babies born in April, May and June are more likely to commit suicide than people born during the other nine months of the year, British researchers say.
Researchers from St. Helen's College, the University of Liverpool and University College London reached the conclusion in a study of nearly 27,000 suicides in England and Wales from 1979-2001.
The study found that people born in the late spring and early summer are 17 percent more likely to commit suicide than those born in the late fall and early winter.
Women are at even greater risk with those born during April, May and June accounting for 30 percent of suicides vs. men born during that period, who accounted for 14 percent of suicides.
"Our results support the hypotheses that there is a seasonal effect in the monthly birth rates of people who kill themselves and that there is a disproportionate excess of such people born between late spring and midsummer compared with the other months," the BBC reported of the study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry.
Copyright 2006 by United Press International