Michelle Birnbaum, New Jersey Mother, Has Child Born On Leap Day

SADDLE RIVER, N.J. -- A New Jersey mother born on February 29 beat 2 million-to-1 odds when she had her daughter – who was also born on leap day.

Birnbaum turns 32 Wednesday, but will celebrate for only the eighth time on the actual date. It comes once every four years as the result of a system intended to keep the seasons, years, months and days in working order.

Birnbaum went into labor on Feb. 28, 2008, but Rose was born the following day.

She tells the newspaper she's delighted to have a "built in party partner."

Comments

[dacenar]

10:20 AM on 03/01/2012

This is not a 2 million to one shot. 1 in 4 of being born on leap year then 1 in 366 on being born the same day. It's cool and great but not that improbable. THink it's like 0.00124 percentage chance. That means there are more Leapday births like this of parent and sibling out there somewhere.

[cantonhoney]

11:36 PM on 02/29/2012

Special!

[rasdeux]

11:27 PM on 02/29/2012

I have a brother and a nephew who are leap babies. There is an article in our local paper of another mother/daughter leapbaby duo.

[rhettcbowling]

10:57 PM on 02/29/2012

Now thats GREAT!

[Andy Shick]

09:56 PM on 02/29/2012

Happy first birthday, Rose.

[Nick1128]

09:24 PM on 02/29/2012

The odds of a given person being born on Feb 29 AND his/her mother being born on Feb 29 are indeed 1/1464 x 1/1464 = 1 / 2143296. But the odds of there existing somewhere in the US a mother-daughter pair where both are born on Feb 29 is very close to 100%. In fact, there are probably hundreds of such pairs in the US. So this is hardly newsworthy. In fact, it would be against astronomical odds, and therefore newsworthy, if there *weren't* any mother-daughter pairs like this in the US!

[Andy Shick]

09:55 PM on 02/29/2012

You are quite correct.

[Andy Shick]

09:56 PM on 02/29/2012

well, one part is wrong though. You should be using 1461, not 1464

[Susan Shaffer]

08:31 PM on 02/29/2012

yep, that mother looks about 5 or 6

[ScottandSandra Cannon]

07:48 PM on 02/29/2012

Haha! Pretty cool! My oldest Sister is born on my Dad's b-day and my oldest brothers 1st daughter was born on his b-day.

[wiseman103199]

07:35 PM on 02/29/2012

Pretty neat!

[lvictoria12]

06:50 PM on 02/29/2012

awhh thats cute. (:

[rmcgregor02]

06:44 PM on 02/29/2012

Odds never have a bearing on right now; they only have a bearing on the past and the future. The odds of everything that happens is 1:1.

[fisch123]

06:17 PM on 02/29/2012

What horrible stats. 1 in about 2 million children born are born on feb 29, and also have a mother who was born on feb 29.

However a mother who was born on feb 29 has a 1 in 1461 chance of having a child born on that date. So the mother really only beat 1 in 1461 odds, and that is presuming that she wasn't aiming to have a child born around a particular date, which would greatly increase the odds. Multiply that by the number of children she has. If she had 5 children the chances of one of them being born on feb 29 is now better than 1 in 300.

[ejbt]

06:25 PM on 02/29/2012

Agreed, whoever came up with the odds in the headline should be fired. They're probably even better than your calculations.

Right now my wife and I could probably pick a range of 10 days our next child will be born with a little planning and common sense.

[linkthereaper]

06:52 PM on 02/29/2012

its just to pull in people i guess?

[Hannah Knise]

07:58 PM on 02/29/2012

You have to add the fact that it is a day that happens only every 4 years. that increases the odds against you to get pregnant at the exact time to not only have a baby on your birthday but on a day that actually only comes every 4 years.

[Nick1128]

09:14 PM on 02/29/2012

The fact that leap year only happens every fourth year has already been taken into account. Odds of a given child being born on Feb 29 (if random, ie no planning), are 1/4 x 1/366 = 1/1464. The odds of someone being born on Feb 29 AND his/her mother being born on Feb 29 are 1/1464 x 1/1464 = 1 / 2143296.

[bms2buy4]

05:48 PM on 02/29/2012

cool.
As for January 29 birthdays - my grandfather, grandchild (me), great grandchild, great great grandchild. All born on this date from different lineage. My grandfather had 5 kids and each of the above were born on Jan. 29 was from a different child of his.
- you would need to see the geneology to to see how unique and cool it is...

[wicklessshannan]

05:47 PM on 02/29/2012

That is too cute

[lafcew]

05:29 PM on 02/29/2012

My mom and my sister shared the same birthday, and three of my sisters gave birth on their husband's birthdays (unintentionally). None of them were born on Leap Day, but it doesn't seem that out of the ordinary.

[TeriA1]

05:33 PM on 02/29/2012

Well, I guess if you don't consider 2 million to 1 bad odds.

[JessicaRabbit]

05:39 PM on 02/29/2012

Gambling/Lotto addict in the making...

[J0E1]

06:24 PM on 02/29/2012

2 million to 1 is assuming both her and her mother were knocked up at random.  It is FAR more likely that she purposely planned the birth around leap day bringing those odds down to better than 40,000 to 1.  That is assuming her mom didn't plan to have a baby around leap day.  If her mom also planned to have her around leap day, the odds drop to 900 to 1.

[Susan Shaffer]

08:34 PM on 02/29/2012

i'll tell you something really creepy.
I was doing my family genealogy and the same dates were popping up.
you can manipulate marriage dates but the same death dates and the birth dates were surprisingly frequent.
I wonder if there is something to this.

[Amy56]

11:09 PM on 02/29/2012

It's called astrology. Not "just" sun sign astrology but the real deal taking all the planets into consideration for the time of birth. It's always seen in families if you take the time to do the research.

[outlawjames8]

11:18 PM on 02/29/2012

Stop now, some things are meant to stay hidden.
Just kidding. Mathematically it's going to happen to someone. No matter how big the odds are in the lottery, someone's going to win.