Pregnancy is a period that is not unique to a woman, but the partner and the close entourage are inevitably also concerned by this change of scale. Close friends also provide support and can also provide advice when they have experience in the field. But this study says that the bond between friends does not stop there regarding pregnancy.
Friendship and pregnancy, what link could exist between the two?
If you notice that pregnancy announcements happen in a group of close friends, there must be a good reason behind it. According to research, this is because pregnancy can become contagious.
Scientists in charge of a 2014 study, published in the American Sociological Association, concluded that "a friend's motherhood positively influences the likelihood of a person becoming a mother."
In order to complete the study, the researchers examined data from 1720 women who participated in the US National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health organized by ADD Health between the mid-1990s and the early 1990s. 2000. In analyzing the data of participants aged 15 and over in 1995 who had home interviews throughout the next decade, scientists noted that almost half of all women had a child at the time of birth. final interviews in 2008-2009.
During these interviews, these women rated their friendships up to 10, which allowed researchers to better understand the patterns that existed among different groups of friends as they grew older. .
By paying more attention to friends in high school, the researchers discovered that there was a real phenomenon of "contagion" in terms of pregnancy. They say: "We found that this effect persisted in the short term. Thus, the probability of procreation specific to a person starts to grow after that of a friend, so it reaches a peak for about 2 years before falling. "
All this confirms the conclusion of a German study dating back to 2011 that showed that friends had more impact on fertility than siblings. According to the same study, the probability of a woman becoming pregnant increases for each friend who has given birth during the last 3 years.
3 theories supposed to explain the phenomenon
Going back to the 2014 study, the researchers came to the conclusion that three theories were able to explain such a sequence of pregnancies:
- Social learning: Women may be more likely to embark on the maternity adventure when they see a close friend lead her successfully.
- Social influence: Women may not want to "feel isolated from the group" if their close friends collectively integrate the world of motherhood.
- Cost Sharing: Logistically, there are financial benefits if two girlfriends know they can coordinate their activities and care for their children.
But it turns out that friends do not only influence the timing of pregnancy but also the number of children according to a 2014 report in the journal Demographic Research which reports a lot of historical evidence on the relationship between friendships. and birth rates. The researchers found that, depending on the context, social mechanisms could work in favor or against having many children.
The first two studies of which we spoke about the phenomenon of contagion did not concern curiously the brothers and sisters. The authors of the 2014 study suggest that in today's individualized societies, friends can be more, or at least as important, as siblings or other family members. They go on to say that close friends can have a much bigger impact than other siblings.
