Why do people time their pregnancies so their due date is September and not August?

[TwinkleStars15]

I’m curious to know why people time their pregnancy so that their baby is born in September/October and not August? I’m assuming it’s about the school year and maybe not being the youngest in their year?

This goes a bit off topic but thought I'd point it out as so many have emphasised the academic advantage. When it comes to educational attainment in the UK, the attainment gap actually starts well before school years and is more explained by socioeconomic factors than biological. There's already an attainment gap between two year olds from the most and least deprived areas. So whilst the statistics favour those starting school later, the picture is far more complicated, with more focus needed on early years provision (Scandinavians' higher Pisa scores aren't explained by the school starting age being 7 either, although it can help).

Our baby is due in January after one miscarriage. All things considered we are very happy, although I can understand why it's a less common birth month considering having a birthday straight after the holiday season or a chance for a baby being born during it.

When it comes to educational attainment in the UK, the attainment gap actually starts well before school years and is more explained by socioeconomic factors than biological. There's already an attainment gap between two year olds from the most and least deprived areas. So whilst the statistics favour those starting school later, the picture is far more complicated, with more focus needed on early years provision

This is of course true, but most people are comparing against the child they could have had at a different time of year, so with all socioeconomic factors being equal. In absolute terms my baby son's academic prospects are statistically likely to be quite good because he was born to middle class, graduate parents who both work in education, but they'd be even better if he weren't a (desperately wanted after three miscarriages, would have taken any birth date at all very happily) summer born and still had those other factors in his favour, ie if we'd planned his birth for September.

OP here - I didn’t say ALL people time they’re pregnancies, but I’ve noticed a lot of people talking about it over the years and was just curious if it was to do with schooling.

I’m well aware that people don’t fall pregnancy immediately, I certainly didn’t and I have a summer born baby also.

As I said, I was just curious

LisaSimpsonsbff I completely understand that's how people compare it, but equally the overemphasis on the time of the year can both distract from the key factors influencing educational attainment, and as some of the responses in this thread show, create bad feelings for those who certainly weren't able to "plan" their baby's birth month. I'm not against people trying to time their pregnancies at a time which best suits them, I was simply arguing that basing it on a statistic which does not fully control for the other key factors undermines the complexity of educational attainment. But I do agree with the planning in a sense that there is little evidence to support putting children to school at the ages of 4-5 in comparison to waiting till they're 6-7.