Astro-research requires birthcharts and birthcharts are calculated and constructed for birth times that are documented on birth certificates or birth records.

But if you take 100 births – each attended by 100 different physicians or midwives with their own procedure for noting and recording the birth time – here’s what the research astrologer doesn’t know.

S/he doesn’t know what part of the birth event was timed.

Was it the actual delivery, the first breath or the cutting of the umbilical cord?

Did all these events occur at approximately the same time or not?

S/he doesn’t know the circumstances of the birth.

Was it easy with no complications or difficult and complicated?

Serious complications can easily divert the physician’s attention away from the need to note and record an accurate birth time.

And the research technician doesn’t know if tiredness is inclined to compromise the accuracy of the recorded birth time for a birth that occurs sometime between midnight and 6.00am.

The astro-researcher doesn’t know if the birth time was verbally stated or mentally noted.

At what stage in the proceedings was it documented?

What time period elapsed before it was documented?

Who did the documenting?

S/he doesn’t know the attitude of the attendant physician to recording birth times or the level of attention to detail s/he possesses.

S/he doesn’t know his or her training and cultural circumstance.

And finally s/he doesn’t know if the time on the clock on the wall or wristwatch that did the timing was accurate or not.

Some reasonable assumptions

It’s reasonable to assume that each of these factors will in some way influence the time that is documented on the birth certificate.

And if the hospital administrator does the paper work it’s presumed that s/he will be given the birth time by someone who attended the birth and this exchange of information may increase the chance for error.

In individual cases mothers can shed light on things like the birth circumstances, but it’s unlikely that most would notice if the clock on the delivery room wall was accurate or not.

The only thing that the astro-researcher knows is that a birth time was recorded on a birth certificate or some other form.

Whether the time is accurate or just approximate and whether it has been accurately transcribed and transmitted from one person to another to eventually make it onto the Astro-Databank website remain big unknowns.

Astrology for Aquarius – sharing our knowledge