Doctors like taking the weekend off...
It appears, in Ireland, the medical profession like to take the weekend off!
I can understand when routine operations can be scheduled but I would have thought that Births were not something that you can schedule or should schedule. If anyone can source me data from other countries I would love to do a comparison.
source of data is Irish Central Statistics Office
You don't need doctors to give birth. Further doctors have to work weekends (just not all at the same time). Correlation is not the same as causation etc. etc.
Maybe its natural for women to give birth Monday to Friday excluding holidays but I highly doubt it.
Babies can be induced which is one possible reason. This is often done on the advice of a consultant who may have plans at the weekend.
I would love to do a comparison to see if the same pattern is there in other countries.
Or maybe the probability of giving birth at weekends is lower for physiological or psychological reasons. Like I said hospitals don't shut at the weekend and a consultant is not required to give birth.
I agree there are numerous explanations. That is exactly why I would like to do a comparison with other Countries. Unfortunately daily data is hard to come by. Would you have any suggestions of where to look?, for the UK or the US I am sure there must be some source.
I don't know exactly where. I'm sure the UK NHS statistics will be on some government site. The difficulty is getting to the right information because of the way things are arranged.
This may have the information you need:
http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/birthsummarytablesenglandandwales/2015
Thanks for that link. I would have thought it was there but I just cant find a table that shows the number of births by day anywhere.
I'm surprised it is not in there. Maybe they just don't collate it that way.