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    Babies And Bankers' Hours: A Shift In U.S. Birth Patterns

    We schedule our work and leisure dates, why not the birth dates of our babies? Anthropologist Barbara J. King looks at this trend in evolutionary perspective.
    by Barbara J. King Jul 20, 2017 3 minutes
    Source: iStockphoto

    Babies are born at all hours around the clock.

    They show up when they're ready! I heard this folk wisdom all the time when I was pregnant with my daughter in 1993. As it turned out, Sarah was born (with just a little nudge from Pitocin, the synthetic version of the hormone oxytocin) at 6:41 on a Saturday evening.

    Just two generations ago, most babies did come around the clock.

    Now, though, most babies born

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