BBC NEWS | Health | Summer babies 'tall and strong'

BBC NEWS | Health | Summer babies 'tall and strong': "Children who are born in late summer or early autumn are often taller and stronger than peers born in spring and winter, a large study suggests.

The results from the Children of the 90s project - which involved 7,000 youngsters - says the reason may lie in their mothers' exposure to the sun.

The body makes Vitamin D, crucial for bone-building, from sunlight.

The Bristol University study suggests that this process may even occur in babies while still in the womb.

By the age of 10, those children born in the summer and autumn months were on average half a centimetre taller and had nearly 13 cm sq of extra bone area than those born in the winter months."