Revealed! The most popular day for Australian babies to be born

While logically you might think that births would be spread out fairly evenly across the year, it turns out research from the ABS indicates there are some birthdays WAY more popular than others for Aussie kids!

September 17 wins!

It seems that September 17 is the most common birthday in Australia, and you’d better watch out because babies born on that date are most likely conceived between December 21 to December 29, so if you’re done having babies make sure you curb those Christmas holiday bedroom celebrations!

April 8 is the second most common according to the ABS gang. Those babies are conceived between July 12 to July 20, leading us to believe that some people have their own genius ways of staying warm through the chilly months.

In a bit more detail:

• The September 17 date boasted 8,862 births over a 10 year period.
• April 8 was lagging slightly behind, with 8,829 births.
• Next most popular was September 23. That date had 8,816 births over the 10 years.
• September 24 and October 1 tied at fourth place, with 8,813 tots.
• February 12 came 5th with 8,810.

From here there’s a dramatic downward jump, as you can see from the graph below. It’s fair to say that the top 5 birthdays are separated by very narrow margins.

Public holidays prove unpopular with babies

The ABS Director of Demography, Beidar Cho, says these trends are not unique to our fair shores, with other countries mirroring the festive/freezing conception triggers, too.

“These trends are similar in New Zealand, England and Wales, and the United States. More babies are likely to be conceived around the Christmas and New Year holidays, [while] fewer babies are born on public holidays – possibly a result of doctors scheduling deliveries on non-public holidays,” Beidar  elaborated.

The data, gleaned from births registered between 2007 and 2016 really did show a remarkably big dip in births on Christmas Day, Anzac Day, New Year’s Day and Australia Day.

For those who love the underdog, the five least common birthdays were (in order of least popular to most popular at the bottom of the list) – February 29, December 25, December 26, January 1 and January 26.

So if you’re planning a baby and you want to make sure they’re going to have a better chance of all their friends being free for their birthday parties, you might want to consider filling one of those less crowded dates … although trying for a February 29 baby will take a lot of patience and luck!

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