How Your Birth Month Can Help (Or Hurt) You

Believe it or not, being born in a specific month can have profound affects on your biology. For example, being born with less sunlight can affect different stages of development in the womb. Sunlight stimulates the production of Vitamin D, which affects respiratory and brain development. No, this isn't astrology, but statistical analysis have shown behavioral similarities between people born in the same month. If you've read Malcolm Gladwell's Outlier's, you would have read about how an abnormal amount of athletes tend to be born at the beginning of their school year, giving them a longer time to mature relative to their peers.

Refer to the article by Business Insider for all the months, but here's a few examples that you may find interesting:

JUNE: June has the highest number of Nobel Prize winners and CEO's.

June babies finally catch a break because they receive more exposure to sunlight in utero and after birth, Ebers said. But because they weren't exposed to sunlight in the early months of development, they are more likely to suffer from vision problems, a study of 300,000 Israeli soldiers found.

SEPTEMBER: The highest school achievers tend to be born in September because they're the oldest in their classes.

According to the same Institute for Fiscal Studies report, they are the most likely to go to college and pursue a professional career. They're at an unfair (dis)advantage because they're the oldest in the class as children and master new concepts more easily.

Example: Warren Buffett: August 30, 1930 (I'll count it as September), Lloyd Blankfein: September 20, 1954

I know what you're thinking, correlation does not equal causation and an infinite amount of variables exist. However, I do believe that there is some value in knowing this. I'd also like to share my birth month November, which made me smirk a little.

NOVEMBER: More serial killers are born this month than any other.

They're also known pessimists. Scientists in a 2005 Swedish study theorized this is because they're deprived of dopamine, the "happy chemical" that's also released with exposure to sunlight, after birth. The study surveyed 30,000 people on how "lucky" they felt, and November babies ranked the lowest.

While I do agree that I can be cynical and skeptical (but definitely not the serial killer part) especially with earnings and economic forecasts, I have the same skepticism towards this article. Perhaps that's irony. Regardless, this article is more amusing than actionable. You can also find plenty of examples that don't fit the description. Obama was born in August, and August babies presumably struggle the most in school being the youngest of their class. Again, these studies look for the rule, rather than the exception. But if you were to ask me if I would consider timing my children's birth month, well, having them in a month that can give them the optimal sunlight at birth wouldn't be the worst thing.

Thoughts?