Culture
A week after earthquakes in New Zealand killed at least 160 people, the country is experiencing a surge in its birth rate. In Canterbury, a region affected by the natural disaster, maternity wards are full, with some women being transferred to regular hospitals as space is scarce. It should be noted that last year in September, after an earthquake of 7 points, the birth rate also rose sharply.
“We've noticed that earthquakes often cause pregnant women to give birth more quickly,” says Canterbury District Physician David Meates. “I believe that during such periods, women go into “survival mode”. Studies have shown that increased stress during pregnancy can cause a surge in hormones that trigger premature births.
At the same time, experts note that the birth rate increases not only immediately after the earthquake, but also 9 months after it. For example, the 8.8-magnitude earthquake that hit Chile on February 27, 2010 triggered a huge baby boom nine months later. “We found a significant increase in the number of consultations in obstetric units in the areas most affected by the earthquake,” said Chilean Health Minister Jaime Manyalih (Jaime Mañalich).
The same thing happened nine months after the devastating earthquake in Haiti on January 12, 2010. According to a study on women's reproductive health conducted by a specially organized United Nations fund, the birth rate has tripled in urban areas countries after the disaster.
Igor Bosc, a representative of the fund, noted that the lack of infrastructure is to blame for this. “Most hospitals that provided gynecological services were destroyed in the most populous part of the country, so many women did not have access to their usual contraceptives drugs,” he explains. It is also possible that survivors of the disaster have begun to have more sex.
As one Haitian journalist noted, sex is a way to deal with stress. “When people find themselves in these kinds of situations, they gradually return to a normal lifestyle.”
Many people say that earthquakes are not the only ones that lead to an increase in the birth rate. For example, Bosk talks about how nine months after New York City experienced a 10-hour solar eclipse in 1965, the birth rate rose sharply, as “the lights went out and people were left alone with each other.”