Y2K bug brings blockbuster baby boom

Wednesday, September 27, 2000

FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

- The Y2K bug may have been a bust. But apparently, many couples were bitten by something else last New Years Eve.

From Los Angeles to Milwaukee, Mississippi and New York, hospitals are booming with babies nine months later.

"Its the babies 2000 month!" says Sara Howley, a spokeswoman at one busy hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. National figures have yet to be tallied. But several hospitals and obstetricians around the country say their numbers have been up all year. And September - traditionally a big month for babies - has been particularly busy.

"It seems like everyone we run into is pregnant," said Trish Reynolds, an architect from Coventry, R.I., whose daughter Abigale was born last Wednesday and spent her first hours of life in a packed hospital nursery.

Reynolds said it is very possible that Abigale was conceived on New Years Eve - a night she and husband Kevin Prest decided to cozy up at home to avoid any Y2K madness.

In Cleveland, McDonald Womens Hospital of University Hospitals has had 236 more deliveries this year over last year, although births have actually declined so far this month. There were 361 babies born through Sept. 25 compared to 418 in 1999, said Janice Guhl, a spokeswoman for the busy birthing center hospital. She described September as an average month in a very strong year.

"Yes, were definitely seeing an increase, but its been that way most of the year," said James Gosky, spokesman for MetroHealth Medical Center.

Final numbers arent in for September, but the county hospital recorded 2,574 births from January through August, compared to 2,300 for the same period last year, a 12 percent increase.

Wintertime is, in fact, the most common time to conceive in cold-weather states, said Dr. Laura Riley, an obstetrician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston who thinks the higher numbers there have more to do with that than the millennium.

Across town at Bostons South Cove Community Health Center - where many new mothers are immigrants from China - another sort of New Year seems to be the culprit. Nurse midwife Mary Hackett said births have been up since Feb. 4, the beginning of the Year of the Dragon, which is considered the luckiest in the 12-year Chinese calendar.

)2000 THE PLAIN DEALER. Used with permission.

http://www.cleveland.com/news/index.ssf?/news/pd/w27baby.html

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), September 27, 2000