When Hoosiers went on pandemic lockdown in spring 2020 as the coronavirus swept the state, some predicted that many couples who were stuck at home without much to do might end up making some babies.
That wasn’t the case in Bartholomew County.
Births at Columbus Regional Hospital in January and February — nine months or more after the pandemic took root in Indiana — were down 29.5% and 32.4% respectively compared to the same months the year before, the hospital said.
However, the number of births this past March and April — babies conceived in June and July — were in line with figures for pregnancies in 2020 that began well before the pandemic.
Overall, 353 women gave birth at CRH from January through April, down from 415 during the same period in 2020.
“My theory is that in the beginning of the pandemic, people were scared and there was so much uncertainty,” said Deanna Abel, director of CRH’s birthing center. “I think it took about three months for it all to sink in. Then lots of people were working from home or not working at all. I think it was around month four when families were beginning to grow.”
And it wasn’t just Bartholomew County.
Births fell dramatically in many states, with experts saying anxiety about COVID-19 and its impact on the economy likely caused many couples to think twice about adding to their family, The Associated Press reported.
Nationally, even before the epidemic, the number of babies born in the U.S. was falling, dropping by less than 1% a year over the past decade as many women postponed motherhood and had smaller families, according to wire reports.
But data from 25 states suggests a much steeper decline in 2020 and into 2021, as the virus upended society and killed over a half-million people in the U.S., including at least 155 in Bartholomew County.
Births for all of 2020 were down 4.3% from 2019, the data indicates. More tellingly, births in December 2020 and in January and February 2021 were down 6.5%, 9.3% and 10% respectively, compared to the same months the year before, according to wire reports.
The AP’s findings mirror predictions by the Brookings Institution and other researchers, who had projected a sizeable drop in births this year.
However, it didn’t always look that way in March 2020, according to wire reports. Some speculated that couples had more time together and that some people might find it harder to run out and get birth control, leading to at least a modest increase in births.
Earlier this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the U.S. birth rate in 2020 dropped 4%, reaching its lowest point since federal health officials started tracking it more than a century ago, according to wire reports.
But despite the sizeable decline in births at CRH at the beginning of the year, a local baby boom may be on the horizon, hospital officials said.
“We anticipate it to be booming more in the next couple of months,” Abel said. “Our prepare visits that the new moms attend about four weeks before they deliver are scheduled out through June with no openings until July. We have never been booked out that far.”
— The Associated Press contributed to this report.
