Did you know babies born at the same exact time can have different birthdays?
Chances are you know at least one person that has the same birthday as you.
In fact, you might even know several people who share your birthday.
But did you know that not everyone who is born at the same time will end up with the same birthday?
In fact, it’s common for people who were born at the same exact time to end up with different birth dates being written on their birth certificates. It happens all the time!
How does this happen, you ask?
Well, it all comes down to time zones…
As I write this it’s 5:19 PM in my neck of the woods. But in Brisbane, Australia it’s already 7:19 AM.
That means it’s already “tomorrow” in Brisbane.
So if there’s a baby being born right now at our local hospital and another baby being born at the same exact time in Brisbane, they are actually being born on two different days.
Even though they were actually born at the same time, the baby born in Australia will always be one day younger than the one that was born in the U.S.
And now, for an even stranger situation…
It also possible for a set of twins to be born minutes apart from the same mother, but end up having different birthdays!
For example, let’s say one twin is born at 11:57 PM but the second twin isn’t born until 12:03 AM.
That would mean those twins were officially born on two different days even though they made their grand entrances into the world a mere six minutes apart!
While the hospitals in some places are allowed to fudge a bit and assign twins born just minutes apart the same “official” birthday even if they were technically born on different days, in other places they are not.
And finally, on a related note, did you know there are rare occasions when twins are actually born several months apart?
Case in point: In 1996 a mother in Baltimore, Maryland gave birth to twins that were born 90 days apart.
As you can see, time zones, the ticking of the clock and special circumstances can sometimes throw things out of whack when it comes to the birthdates of twins.
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