Is having a Halloween baby too scary?

Are moms too afraid to deliver their babies on Halloween? Possibly! A new Yale study concluded that births decline on Halloween. This includes spontaneous births and C-sections. The study, published in this month's issue of Social and Science Medicine, suggests that women might be able to control when they give birth. "Our findings raise the possibility that pregnant women may be able to control the timing of spontaneous births, in contrast to traditional assumption," the researchers noted. Before you dismiss the findings and chalk them up to another small scale study, note that the researchers looked at 1.7 million births from two weeks during February 2006 and 1.8 million births from two weeks during October 2006. They found the following:

• C-sections increased by 12.1 percent on Valentine's Day
• C-sections decreased by 16.9 percent on Halloween
• Spontaneous births increased 3.6 percent on Valentine's Day
• Spontaneous births decreased 5.3 percent on Halloween

"Those [the spontaneous births] are the ones that are really interesting," the lead researcher said. "How that would actually happen, we don't know. One possible explanation is that there are studies that show that there are different kinds of psychological factors, which could have a role on hormones." She said that a practical implication of the study is giving hospitals an opportunity to prepare by increasing (or decreasing) staff on certain days. More on Halloween Halloween costumes for pregnant moms Outrageous and just plain wrong baby Halloween costumes Under the sea baby Halloween costumes