Leap Day Families

What are the odds? Michelle Birnbaum of New Jersey was born on Leap Day 32 years ago, and then gave birth to a daughter four years ago, also on Leap Day. So her daughter was born on her seventh birthday. Those who crunch the numbers say the odds are about two million to one. Consider how many people we have in the U.S., it should happen again. Link

And it did. Shaneka Hinton of Orlando, Florida, was born on Leap Day in 1988. Yesterday, she turned 24, although it was only her sixth birthday. Hinton spent the day in the maternity ward as she gave birth to Christina Raynette Clemente, yet another Leap Day baby! And what's more -Hinton's son was born on the Fourth of July. Now Hinton and her daughter will be able to celebrate their birthdays together -once every four years. Link

(Image credits: Top: NY Post/Splash News Bottom: Jacob Langston, Orlando Sentinel)

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The odds aren't really that large. The odds you share a birthday with a parent are roughly 1 in 182.6.

They calculated these odds just for the mother. That's arbitrary. They also figured in the odds of a mother already being a leap baby, which, of course, has already passed and has no bearing (!) on whether she will give birth on leapday.

Also, most parents have more than one kid. So they get multiple shots at this.

The 2M:1 odds are actually the odds against any mother you meet on the street sharing a leapday birthday with their first child.
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About 11,000 leap babies are born each leapday in America alone. Worldwide it's more like 384,000.

With those numbers, it would be phenomenally unusual if NONE of them shared a leapday birthday with a parent.
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I have a friend who moved to the US from the Ukraine. She's 8 this year and a Medical Laboratory Scientist! With today's frequency of C-Section-to-order births, I don't put as much stock in the "rarity" than I would those born on their own time, naturally.
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