The consequences of the Corona crisis can be clearly felt in all areas of life. A Europe-wide study shows that the birth rate has fallen by an average of 14 percent. More babies were born in only two countries than in the same period.
Fewer babies were conceived in Europe during the first corona lockdown than in comparable periods in previous years. The number of births nine months after the peak of the first lockdown fell by an average of 14 percent across 24 European countries, as obstetrics specialist Léo Pomar from the University of Lausanne reports with colleagues in the journal Human Reproduction.
The result was mainly influenced by 13 countries in which the decline in births was between 12 and 28 percent. According to this study, it was almost 7.1 percent in Germany. The number of births in January 2021 fell particularly sharply in Lithuania (28.1 percent), Ukraine (24.4 percent) and Spain (23.5 percent), but also in Italy, Portugal and France.
The scientists looked at the national number of live births in January 2021 and compared it with the average for the months of January 2018 and January 2019. Among 24 countries, only Finland and Denmark had more babies born than in the same period. The corona measures were different in every country, but practically everywhere amounted to a lockdown, i.e. a restriction of social life. Only Sweden did not have a lockdown.
“The longer the lockdown lasted, the fewer the number of pregnancies that occurred, even in countries that weren’t very badly affected by the pandemic,” Pomar said of the study. In conclusion, the authors write: “Measures such as social distancing and social distancing, fears related to the pathogen, and the social and economic crisis may be indirect factors playing a role in couples’ decisions to postpone pregnancy.”
About nine months after the end of the first corona lockdown, in March 2021, the average number of births in all countries was slightly above the pre-pandemic level. The “missing” births in January were at least not immediately compensated for, the authors write. However, in some, but not all, countries, the number of births in February and March 2021 increased significantly compared to the average of the reference months 2018 and 2019 – especially in Finland and the Netherlands, but also in Germany.