Season of conception tied to school performance (pesticides link in summer months)

[Herman Munster]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070508/hl_nm/conception_school_performance_dc

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The time of year a woman conceives may influence the future academic performance of her child, according to research reported this week at the Pediatric Academic Societies' annual meeting.

When researchers linked standardized test scores of 1,667,391 Indiana students in grades 3 through 10 with the month in which each student had been conceived, they found that children conceived May through August scored significantly lower on math and language tests than children conceived during other months of the year.

The correlation between test scores and conception season held regardless of race, gender, and grade level.

Why might this be? According to Dr. Paul Winchester of Indiana University School of Medicine who led the study, says the evidence points to environmental pesticides, used most often in the summer months, as a possible player.

The lower test scores correlated with higher levels of pesticides and nitrates in the surface water (nearby streams and other bodies of water) during that same time period, he told Reuters Health.

"Exposure to pesticides and nitrates can alter the hormonal milieu of the pregnant mother and the developing fetal brain," Winchester explained in a statement. For example, past research has linked exposure to pesticides and nitrates to low thyroid hormone levels ("hypothyroidism") in pregnant women and hypothyroidism in pregnancy has been tied to lower intelligence test scores in offspring.

[Cabcere]

1. Interesting.

Of course, there are bound to be exceptions to every rule - my brother and I both did extremely well on standardized tests (he's good at other things, but that appears to be one of my few talents, lol :P), and we both would've been conceived in that general time period (late April for me, early August for him). :shrug: Still, a very interesting article, and one that merits further reading. Thanks for sharing! :thumbsup:

[ladjf]

2. Americans seem to be getting dumber.

It appears that over the past 50 years or so, the IQ's of Americans have been dropping. This is just my opinion based on my own observations.

However, it is time for some serious research into the possibility that an array of environmental conditions is lowering our IQ's. That might account for why the politics have just gone crazy. People are supporting their oppressors.

[KT2000]

3. Childhood brain tumors

have also been found more frequently in children coneived dduring this time.

Some day people will put together the 70,000 chemicals in commercial use with many illnesses and deaths.