Baby boom post-lockdown — is it a thing?

Some New Zealand hospitals are reporting a baby boom following lockdown; one says the number of women at its maternity ward has risen by 44 per cent since last year.

Middlemore Hospital was seeing a daily average of 34 new patients to its maternity ward between December 2019 and January 2020. This summer that’s jumped to 49.

Middlemore Hospital obstetrician Dr Sarah Corbett told the Herald the past four weeks had felt really busy, and every delivery room was full.

“Often you have ups and downs, but recently it’s felt constantly busy.

“We’ve been saying, ‘what’s going on, why is it so busy?’ and then we calculated it and realised it has been nine months since the start of lockdown,” Corbett said.

Last week the Herald reported hospitals across the country were experiencing a surge in demand, citing GPs taking longer holidays after Covid and people putting off seeing a doctor while away.

Rotorua Hospital also its maternity ward being much busier last month, with 124 deliveries compared with 98 in December 2019.

A spokeswoman at the Wairarapa District Health Board said: “December was busy, and we expect February and March to be much the same. January has mostly been very settled, with a few very busy days.”

Canterbury DHB had a slight rise in births from 448 in December 2019 to 468 last month but said lockdown was not behind the increase.

Norma Campbell, director of midwifery at Canterbury DHB, said the increase was not significant and was likely because of population growth.

“We are slightly busier than usual due to a higher number of preterms, but that has nothing to do with either Covid-19 or the lockdown period last year,” Campbell said.

South Canterbury DHB said a rise from 40 births in December 2019 to 49 last month wasn’t enough of an increase beyond normal fluctuations day by day, which are standard in a maternity ward.

Whanganui DHB had similar results, with 136 discharges from the maternity ward last summer (December to January) compared with this year’s 146. “It’s increased, but similar patterns can be seen in the past,” a DHB spokesman said.

At West Coast DHB, the number of births had almost halved; 47 babies were born between December 2019 and January 2020, compared with 26 this year.

Debbie Fisher, associate director of midwifery for Nelson Marlborough Health, said: “We haven’t seen a significant increase in births for December-January across the district compared to other years.

“Wairau had a few more births in December, but this was within normal monthly fluctuations that we expect.”

A New Zealand College of Midwives spokeswoman said there was an assumption that with more

Often you have ups and downs, but recently it’s felt constantly busy. We’ve been saying, ‘what’s going on, why is it so busy?’ and then we calculated it and realised it has been nine months since the start of lockdown.

Dr Sarah Corbett Middlemore Hospital

people spending time at home during lockdown there would be a baby boom.

“But I can’t say we have seen any evidence of that. Often our members will get in touch if they are feeling stressed or overworked but we haven’t had a single call or email,” she said.

Other DHBs including Auckland, Waitemata¯, Capital and Coast weren’t able to respond within a three-day timeframe and requested the information be sought through an Official Information Act.