Season of birth in siblings of patients with seasonal affective disorder. A test of the parental conception habits hypothesis

Abstract

Recently we have published a report on seasonally varying birth rates in 553 patients with seasonal affective disorder (SAD). The present study is aimed to test the hypothesis of an idiosyncratic seasonal conception pattern of the parents of these patients to explain this phenomenon. We conducted a telephone interview with the patients to obtain information on the birth data of their siblings. Using the method of chart review to acquire information on the family history of our patients, we excluded those siblings with psychiatric disorders. We first compared the birth months and the quarters of birth of 435 healthy siblings with the general population. Secondly, we compared the birth distribution of the index SAD patients with that of their siblings. There was a significant deviation between the birth distribution of the siblings and the general population calculated on a monthly basis (p = 0.044). When comparing quarters we found less births than expected in the first (-14.1%) and fourth quarter of the year (-15.1%) and an excess of births in the second (+7.7%) and third quarter (+21.1%; p = 0.018). There were no significant differences between the group of SAD patients and their siblings regarding their birth patterns as calculated by months (p = 0.848) or quarters (p = 0.320). Our study provides support for the hypothesis of specific parental conception habits underlying the birth seasonality in SAD. Further research could be conducted in non-seasonal depression as there is still a lack of studies on seasonality of birth in affective disorders.