Day of Birth in England and Wales

For this post it's back to the Office of National Statistics Excel spreadsheet (xls) with day by day number of births from 1995 to 2016. I wrote about that on 27 September in Most and Least Likely Birthdates in England and Wales which showed a big drop in births around Christmas and Boxing Day.

Based on a sample of every fourth year from 1996 to 2016 the graph shows the fraction of births for each day of the week. Friday or Thursday have most births, it varies from year to year, Sunday then Saturday have least.
Although the number of births has increased over the years the distribution has remained much the same.
Just as obstetricians and midwives prefer not to work at Christmas so they like their weekends free. Induced labour and C-sections (approaching a third of births are now C-sections) mean medical professional and mothers often have some control in choosing the day of birth.
If you believe in the old rhyme there are more Thursday's children who have "far to go", and Friday's children who are "loving and giving" that Saturday's who "work hard for a living" or Sunday's who are "bonny and blithe, and good and gay." I don't believe it, witness the current US President who was born on a Friday.