Science Confirms That Pregnancy Can Be “Contagious”
According to statistics, 2010 was the year when the number of pregnancies in the USA was the highest at 6.2 million! Perhaps this can be explained by a discovery scientists have made about pregnancy.
We at Bright Side have learned about pregnancy research held by scientists that explains why it’s actually contagious.
In 2014, The American Sociological Association journal published a study that caused scientists to come to an interesting conclusion: pregnancy can be contagious.
During the study, which lasted for 10 years (from the 1990s to the 2000’s), researchers analyzed the data of 1,720 women and discovered a very interesting trend: more than half of women had a child by the end of the experiment.
During the interviews, the women mentioned things like “friendship ties”, which was a probable reason for a strong “contagion” in pregnancies. All because humans tend to act according to their environment and interpersonal interactions which influence the decisions they make.
This means that seeing a pregnant friend evokes positive feelings within a woman and subconsciously, it starts to affect her fertility intentions.
Also, there are some other possible factors prompting a woman to change the direction of her fertility intentions.
- Seeing her friend being able to manage her child gives confidence to another woman about her childcaring abilities.
- Seeing her friends stepping into motherhood gives a woman a feeling of having been left behind, and she starts trying to keep herself up-to-date by becoming a mother too.
Surprisingly enough, "friendship ties" can also influence the number of kids a woman has. The reasons are the same: if a woman's friend can manage several kids, you can do it too. Moreover, the feeling of being left behind if your friend has 3 kids and you have only one child is still there.
Another interesting fact is that this element of contagion doesn't exist among siblings. Some researchers explain this by the fact that in today's world, friends can be of higher importance to individuals than their siblings.
Therefore, the "risk" of a woman getting pregnant increases with every friend who already has a child.
Have you noticed this phenomenon among you and your friends? Has the number of kids your friends have influenced the number of kids you have? Please tell us about it in the comments!
