Will The Coronavirus Lead To A Baby Boom?

Thanks to social distancing measures and lockdowns arising from attempts to curb a more widespread COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, most people are facing the possibility of spending the next few weeks at home, and in close proximity with our loved ones. If you are looking to start or grow your family, you might be in luck. Researchers have regularly found that large-scale disasters which have forced families and couples to stay together for extended periods of time can actually have an impact on birth rates. After all, catastrophes bring people together. In one study published in 2002, social scientists saw a spike in marriages and births after Hurricane Hugo struck. University of Washington psychology professor Pepper Schwartz told Quartz: "Scary times have the potential to drive people together or apart." Basically, if you're facing an uncertain future, it's nice to have someone else with you. And it just doesn't happen in America. When the UK county of Gloucestershire suffered from historic flooding in 2007, the council experienced a big shortage in school places a few years later, and ended up having to create 200 extra spots to meet demand. The conclusion? That the 2007 flooding had led to a baby boom. Even in Italy, which has been hit hard by the coronavirus, The Daily Beast says people in quarantine zones have already begun talking about a spike in births. Midwife Ann Whitman, who has 29 years of experience delivering babies, believes birth rates could rise when people are forced to spend more time at home together. She told the Boston Globe: "It's anything that causes people to stay home more. Remember we had all that snow three or four years ago? People tend to take comfort by getting close." Whitman went on to explain that her business improved dramatically nine months later. Lauren Wise, a Boston University Academic, agreed, saying: "If the couples are stuck at home and not ill from infection, it is plausible that they would engage in more regular intercourse and that we would see a spike in the birth rates in 39-40 weeks from now." But not everyone sees things the same way. Lyman Stone, a former economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said birth rates do go up, but not right away, because he thinks birth rates actually go down when residents are faced with natural catastrophes like influenza outbreaks, hurricanes, and Ebola. And while fertility rates did rise again, the rebound didn't happen until 10 or 11 months after the natural disaster. He concluded, "COVID could boost births over four years after the epidemic runs its course by anywhere from 0.3 percent to 40 percent." So can we expect the coronavirus to cause a global spike in birth rates by the end of this year? Possibly. Maternal fetal medicine doctor Michael Cackovic told Romper: "There are certainly tons of anecdotal reports of increased fecundity or fertility after events forcing people to stay at home. Scientific reports, however, have been mixed in an effort to confirm the phenomenon." Still, Stone thinks a baby boom is likely, but only if conditions are right. He told the Boston Globe: "If Americans take proactive measures to stay home together more and avoid going out, and in doing so also succeed in preventing COVID from spreading widely, and if policymakers take measures to keep the economy humming, then U.S. birth rates could actually rise slightly in the next year as a result of COVID." But parents with crisis babies don't need science to tell them what they already know. Nicola Davies, who had a baby after the Gloucestershire floods, told The Guardian: "I don't care what the evidence is. [...] We'd been through two weeks of hell, everyone was on an absolute high. It was like a reaffirmation we'd got through it! Speaking for myself, there was a bit of alcohol involved. A sense of celebration. And, well, there we were." #Coronavirus #BabyBoom