Suicide
Babies born in spring may face suicide risk
By IANS
May 2, 2006 - 11:02:00 PM

Babies born in spring may have increasing risk of committing suicide, British researchers have found in a new study that links personality disorders to months in which people are born.

Researchers studied 26,916 suicides in England and Wales and found babies born in April, May or June had a 17 percent higher risk of suicide than those born in autumn, reported the online edition of BBC News.

The study by researchers from St. Helen's and Liverpool University and the Institute of Child Health at University College London, which is published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, found that several diseases are linked to seasons.

The researchers suggested that the increased risk reflected the fact that more people with alcoholism, depression and mood disorders are born in these months.

"We are born all the same but some of us are more vulnerable than others to certain diseases," they said.

Scientists have established seasonal birth trends for a number of diseases, including some cancers, heart disease and brain tumours.

Other research has found more patients with schizophrenia, brain degenerating disease Alzheimer's, epilepsy and sleep disorder narcolepsy are born in December than any other month.

Nearly 30 percent more suicides were committed among women by those born in spring. Among men the rate was nearly 14 percent higher than those born in autumn.

The authors said: "Our results support the hypothesis 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."

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