Ever find yourself somehow expecting just around the same time as your besties?
There may be a scientific reason behind that strange and wonderful coincidence, a study from 2014 reveals.
Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) in the United States, researchers analysed data about 1,720 women who were at least 15 years old in 1995.
They compared pregnancy patterns among 10 of each woman's schoolmates to other peers, to whom they had no social attachment.
The study, published in the American Sociological Review, found that if our friends become pregnant, then we're more likely to conceive as well.
The researchers described this as a 'short-term and inverse U-shaped' effect. A woman's risk of becoming pregnant starts increasing after their friend has a child, and peaks about two years after their friend gives birth before declining.
The team had several theories for why this occurs.
Firstly, our friends' childbearing might influence our own behaviour because, surprise, surprise, we tend to compare ourselves to those in our social circle.
As well, when our friends become pregnant we get more comfortable with the idea of being in the family way ourselves since we get to learn from their experiences.
And, of course, we can't forget the economic factors. When we have kids at the same time as our friends, we can swap old baby clothes, look after each others' children, and employ other 'cost-saving strategies'.
We're not going to lie, it is super handy! Plus then our little ones have built-in playmates.
"Synchronizing childbearing with friends may reduce the risk of being left behind by friends who already have a child," the authors of the study astutely noted.
The researchers found that a friend's childbearing did not affect unintended pregnancies. This reinforced their theory that clusters of pregnancies occur in friends groups because of rational decisions based on 'social learning and cost-sharing dynamics'.
What do you think of these findings, mums? Did you and your group of friends all get pregnant around the same time?
