Abstract
The seasonal patterns of conceptions and births differ between geographic areas. Several potential determinants of this variation have been identified, including biological, environmental and behavioral elements, but festive events are rarely mentioned. We investigated the possible association between the carnival and seasonal fertility variations in the French West Indies. We ran a retrospective registry-based study. The data were extracted from the registry of all births on Guadeloupe between 2000 and 2011 (n = 74,412), and from the Maternity Birth Register of the University Hospital, for all pregnancies of at least 14 completed weeks of gestation (observable conceptions) with an outcome recorded between 2007 and 2010 (n = 8,425). We compared data during and outside the carnival period for each year, including 2009, when there was no carnival due to a 44-day general strike. In all years other than 2009, the weekly number of births was higher for pregnancies initiated during the carnival period than for pregnancies initiated at other times, and the weekly number of observable conceptions was higher during the carnival period than at other times. Our findings support the hypothesis that carnivals in the French West Indies are associated with an increase in the number of conceptions and subsequent births.
Highlights
We investigated the possible effects of the carnival period in Guadeloupe on the number of conceptions and subsequent births, for every year from 2000 through 2011
Births from pregnancies initiated outside the carnival period
Births from pregnancies initiated during the carnival period p value a n per 1,000 n
Summary
This study took place in Guadeloupe (French West Indies), a tropical archipelago in the Caribbean covering an area of 1,628 km, with 402,000 inhabitants (in 2013). Births were considered to be any product of conception weighing at least 500 g or having completed 22 full weeks of gestation [14]. We assumed that all pregnancies were of normal duration, defined as between 37 and 42 complete weeks of gestation, which is considered normal for all populations [14]. We defined a birth period for “carnival pregnancies” for a given year, based on pregnancies of normal length for which conception occurred during the carnival period. These birth periods were defined as extending from 35 weeks after the first day of the carnival to 40 weeks after the last day of the carnival
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