(I originally sent my response directly to Ethan and danah, so here it is for everyone.) danah and Ethan, I'm not familiar with any studies except for this one: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-01/w-cif012209.php , but I can tell you that in my personal experience, LiveJournal is where a lot of this is happening. I myself was in a birth week (and month - months appear to be more common, FWIW) group and continue to be involved in it. We're now all swapping teething remedies. There is particular kinship with "birthday buddies." It was my experience that when one joins one of the open/common LJ groups (like pregnancy, pregnant, or parenting101), it is expected that one shares her name, age, due date and other details. Then a mod or a member of the month group will private message or send a comment inviting the user to join "November2008" or whatever. Also, it is expected that community members will post their "birth story" within a few days of giving birth. After those are posted, invites to "birthday week buddy" groups are send privately or via comments. I see every few weeks a post in the general groups that says "Hey, we just started a August2009 group!" It is absolutely the case that these groups vary in demographics and attitudes toward childrearing (although I'd venture a guess that these groups skew more crunchy. Parenting101 is a very popular, albeit snarky, group though that has its subcommunities of (self-proclaimed) boobnazis (breast is best and if you don't agree, we hate you), co-sleepers, anti-vaccination people, etc.)). The month groups are generally friendly and more supportive and as Ethan speculates, more about developmental and medical questions (i.e., how did your baby's 2-month vaccinations go? Or did your OB give you this test?). Demographically, all these communities skew YOUNG. I, at 30, feel like the oldest by far. Most seem to be in their late teens and early 20s. As such, financial issues and custody/relationship/how parents react to the news issues are a bit different than the ones that I discuss with my "real life" parent friends. For example, I posted a question the other day about opinions regarding a stroller accessory and was quickly flamed for owning a stroller deemed too expensive. Then there was a flame war about how that stroller, while expensive has a lifetime guarantee, was easily found on Craig's List, etc. But there is definitely a lot of good feedback given to the younger mothers when asking questions about budgeting, what is really essential and the like. And yes, friendships emerge and appear to be very different from "real life" friendships. Some of them are maintained through the community itself and others occur through comments that move into be-friending on private journals (i.e., "Looks like we both do cloth diapers and have boys. Friend eachother?") I hope that this was helpful. If anyone is interested in discussing further or offlist, I'd be happy to. And yes, I probably spend way too much time there. I like to crowdsource my baby questions though. J Thanks, Katy Message: 4 Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 09:59:38 -0500 From: danah boyd <aoir.z3z@danah.org> Subject: [Air-L] research on birth week groups? To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Message-ID: <1694AFEA-E805-487C-8016-AC5B162487EB@danah.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes A friend of mine is trying to find research on women who are part of "birth week" groups. I've heard a lot about these forming through Craigslist, but I don't know who is doing research in this space. Does anyone here know? I've included his full query below. --danah Begin forwarded message:

From: Ethan Zuckerman <ethanz@gmail.com>

In the past few (several?) years, online support groups have emerged

for women who share a pregnancy due date. Some of these clubs are

regional; others are nationwide or worldwide, usually constrained by

language. Women participate because it's helpful to compare their

experiences to women at the same stage of gestational development.

What's interesting to me about these groups is that they encourage

connect - sometimes deep emotional connection - between women who

don't share much in common in demograhic/psychograhic terms. These

groups are limited by gender, age and basic computer literacy, but

they appear to be - if only from anecdotes - more diverse than many

voluntary online associations.

I'm interested in whether anyone has done either a detailed

ethnographic or a quantitative, survey-based study of one or more of

these communities. I'm especially interested in observations on

support relationships developing between women who differ in terms of

income, race and religion.

-E