Baby boom in 2021, an offshoot of coronavirus pandemic

It would seem that the pandemic did not only cause illnesses, but it also led to babies! Yes, the pandemic might just have its own silver lining after all.

Doctors in New York City have informed The Post that they are expecting a baby boom starting in January of the coming year. Pregnancies amid the pandemic have increased and doctors noted that they saw many women who are already seeking fertility treatments.

Dr. David Keefe, a fertility specialist at NYU Langone Health, noted that there is indeed a boom in the city. He thinks that for many people, the pandemic also initiated a forced reconciliation of things that really matter.

Another physician, Dr. Michael Nimaroff, OB-GYN Services senior vice president at Northwell Health, which is considered as the biggest hospital network in the state, said that an increase of two or three percent starting January is expected. While the usual number of births in a year is at 30,000, Nimaroff expects that it would be about 750 more in 2021. He added that in the 40 obstetrical practices that are located in Long Island, New York City, and Westchester, they already saw an increase in patients in May.

For Nimaroff, even a small increase in births is already positive. They have seen how births have fallen in 2019 by around one percent as compared to births in 2018.

Dr Keefe said that the low rate of hospital deliveries may be about to change. He noted that women who put on hold their fertility treatments at the start of the pandemic were now encouraged to resume them considering that specialist offices were opened. Deliveries were said to be down by around 10 percent at the NYU Langone's hospitals but the baby boom may be changing things.

During the pandemic, when many specialist offices were closed, and with many coronavirus cases in hospitals, many people were also hesitant to pay their doctors a visit. Now that establishments and even specialty clinics are starting to open again, doctors are seeing more people going back to hospitals to resume their treatments. Women who were motivated to resume fertility treatments are just among the examples.

Baby Boom 2021

Previously though, a Brookings Institute report noted that there would not be a baby boom in the US. With these two seemingly opposing ideas, only 2021 will tell whether the pandemic will actually lead to a baby boom.