Nine months after Cubs’ World Series win, Chicago hospitals seeing a baby boom
CHICAGO — Last fall, Jackie Young told her husband a joyous but unexpected bit of news: She was pregnant.
The couple did the math to figure out when their baby was conceived and landed on the night of Nov. 2 — Game 7 of the World Series. The two longtime Cubs fans, swept up by the magic of the Cubs’ victory, marked the end of the 108-year championship drought with their own celebration.
“She was a surprise,” said Jackie’s husband, Phil, about his newborn daughter, born three weeks ago. The couple named her Ivy — a nod to the baseball team that did the unthinkable that November night. “I don’t think you plan for a World Series baby,” he said with a laugh.
Nine months after the World Series win, it appears other couples may not have planned for this either. Chicago hospitals are reporting a spike in the number of births this month, and doctors are hearing anecdotally that the mothers visiting their delivery rooms conceived their children during the Cubs’ playoffs. The due dates typically start in July and carry into August.
At Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, doctors say they’ve noticed the number of deliveries going up and expect the trend to continue through August. Between July 10 and 18, the stretch with the highest surge, the hospital had almost double the amount of deliveries each day compared with its normal average, said Dr. Melissa Dennis, vice chairwoman of obstetrics and gynecology. While she can’t scientifically link the birth increase to the World Series, she said those babies’ due dates could have easily fallen on July 26 — exactly 38 weeks after Game 7. An average pregnancy is 38 to 40 weeks depending on how it is measured.
“Whether it’s the natural ebb and flow of labor and delivery or the Cubs celebration?” Dennis asked. “We can leave that up to the imagination.”
Major sports victories are known to trigger baby booms, and some experts say the Cubs’ World Series victory won’t be an exception. Researchers with the BMJ, formerly the British Medical Journal, concluded in a 2013 study that the heightened euphoria following a sports victory can spur sensations that lead to intimate celebrations, and, in turn, unplanned pregnancies.
They cite the group of children known as the “Iniesta generation” — who were conceived in the hours after FC Barcelona player Andres Iniesta scored a last-minute goal against Chelsea FC in May 2009, which put Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League Final. The study found that nine months later, births were up 16 percent.
The Boston Globe in 2005 reported a “Red Sox phenomenon.” Nine months after the Red Sox beat the St. Louis Cardinals and ended an 85-year championship drought, Red Sox onesies were flying off the shelves, and there was a spike in children named Manny, for Manny Ramirez, the 2004 World Series MVP.
But baby booms aren’t exclusive to sports victories. Media reports have linked storms and natural disasters, like Hurricane Sandy, to increased birth rates. Dennis, the doctor at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, said the hospital noticed a baby boom after the 2011 Chicago blizzard.
Researchers agree that births spike in September, nine months after December, as a result of the “Christmas effect.” Some members of the media have tried to predict baby booms as well: The birth of Britain’s Prince George in 2013 was expected to cause a “copyKate” effect, according to British media reports, but birth statistics show an increase likely never happened.