Social Media Moms: How Networking Impacts Purchasing Behaviors, a new study commissioned by Child’s Play Communications from The NPD Group, has found that 79% of all moms in the US with children under the age of 18 are active social media users, and of this number about a quarter said they have purchased a children’s product as a result of a recommendation from a social networking site or blog.

The study finds that social media moms, defined as moms who currently belong to a social networking site and/or write, read or comment on blogs, are increasingly turning to peer recommendations for purchasing decisions.

Active social media moms who purchased a children’s product based on a social media recommendation said that, on average, they did so five times in the past year. And 55% of these moms said they made their purchase because of a recommendation from a personal review blog and 40% from a Facebook recommendation.