Schizophrenia, Season of Birth, and Maternal Age

Maternal age is a neglected variable, with obvious implications for aetiology, in psychiatric research. In samples of schizophrenic patients, the distributions by month of birth and maternal age at birth show remarkable anomalies. These phenomena may be connected, because the seasonal distribution o...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:British journal of psychiatry 1988-12, Vol.153 (6), p.727-733
Main Author: Dalen, P
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Biological and medical sciences
Female
Fertility
Humans
Maternal Age
Medical sciences
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Psychoses
Review Article
Schizophrenia - etiology
Seasons
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Maternal age is a neglected variable, with obvious implications for aetiology, in psychiatric research. In samples of schizophrenic patients, the distributions by month of birth and maternal age at birth show remarkable anomalies. These phenomena may be connected, because the seasonal distribution of births varies with maternal age, probably as a result of the age-dependent changes of fertility. Preliminary attempts to describe the seasonal effect in schizophrenia as a function of the shift in mean maternal age are not wholly successful at the quantitative level. Southern-hemisphere findings do not seem to fit the predicted pattern. Examples from other areas of research are discussed (sudden unexpected death in infants, congenital dislocation of the hip, and handedness) in which the seasonal distributions of births, and the findings on maternal age, conform to different varieties of the expected relationship.
ISSN:0007-1250
1472-1465
DOI:10.1192/bjp.153.6.727