Fewer Babies?

[TheCatsBlanket]

Not sure if this has been discussed before, sorry if it has but with the lockdown from late March, I was wondering if there will be fewer babies born at the beginning of 2021? I don't mean babies born to those who live together / married, but rather from the lack of new relationships starting up.

Worldwide there has to be fewer pregnancies doesn't there. Any medical folk here who can answer this?

@TheDailyCarbuncle

I think one of the very poorly recognised upcoming crises for the world is population decline. We are overpopulated and the planet would benefit from a decline but economically it's hard for the world to cope with a big shift in numbers. People, especially in Europe and Japan were already having fewer and fewer babies. I think covid will have a further impact on that - possibly not a massive one - but it will convince a significant minority of people who were on the fence not to go for it, for various reasons. I think people who struggled with one or two small ones during lockdown will decide not to have a second/third. And others considering their first will look at how their friends who are parents struggled and decide they'd better not.

What I wonder is what the fallout will be from a whole generation of teenagers having their education taken away from them. Will that affect their decision to have kids over the next twenty years?

One thing is for sure, the utterly moronic attitude to immigration that many countries have, including the UK, will have to change. At a certain point if your own country isn't producing enough people you must accept people from elsewhere. It's either that or force women into having babies, which will also happen in some areas (and happens to an extent already).

The UK is an over populated tiny island. Not enough work for the people who live here. Not enough ability to produce enough food without imports. It struggles to house the existing population.

Why does it need more people?

Redolent fingers crossed that the vaccine will be rolled out quickly.
However it’s going to take the NHS a while to recover. 2020 has seen the HCPs dig in like warriors.
I think 2021 will be the real shit show.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t care one way or the other if women want to conceive - not my circus not my monkeys (I’ve 4 all grown up). I’m just surprised is all. Couldn’t think of a worse time.

Loads of people have trouble conceiving. They cannot wait until this is over that is if it will ever be over. People have always procreated during famine and wars and even in war zones new life brings hope for a better world. Life goes in regardless of what is happening in the world. There is no right or wrong time to conceive and I say this as a serial planner.

@Bikingbear because at a certain point, a lack of young people and an over abundance of older people becomes a serious economic problem. On a very basic level you need people who are starting out in their careers as much as people who are established - there needs to be a pipeline of new blood in every business. 'Overpopulated' as a lazy term that sees people as numbers - the composition of the population is important, including age, skill level, medical need etc. A population that has a very high number of older people who don't work and who have high medical need and a very low number of working, tax-paying young people will struggle massively. In order for there to be young adults available in twenty years' time, people have to be having babies in certain numbers now. If they're not, the young population will not keep up with the older population. It's already a serious issue in Japan, where the birth rate is extremely low. The obvious solution is to bring young people in from other countries, but people are such fuckwits about immigration that they'd rather tank their economy than admit that foreign workers are vital. The NHS already relies massively on non-UK born staff.

The lack of a strong, working-age population can decimate a country. Just look at Ireland post-famine or any African country that was plundered by colonists. It can take generations to recover. There seems to be an assumption that the UK will always have inward migration but post Brexit there may be a huge jump in people leaving and not coming back. That combined with a low birth rate can spell huge problems for a country. People seem to forget that one of the basic things needed for business is staff - no people, no business.

I’m really happy to be pregnant. Age wise, I couldn’t wait 2/5/10 years to conceive. We have stable jobs and plenty of savings. My maternity care has been fine so far. And if fewer women are having babies it’ll be quieter in April when I give birth. Happy days.

I got pregnant with DC2 in May, due in Feb, sort of in a not-quite-an-accident-but-a-bit-of-a-surprise way, and I was a bit worried about telling people because I thought people would be judgemental about me being stupid enough to get pregnant in a pandemic. When I told my friend from university she said 'oh my god, you too?! You know that half our year are having babies in January, February or March next year!'. They're nearly all first babies and we're 34 so I guess it's a very normal age for a 'boom' in our group, but apparently lots of people didn't think it was such a stupid idea!

I suspect the teen/young adult birth rate will dramatically drop as those not living together mostly didn't have the opportunity to accidentally get pregnant however I think lockdown boredom may contribute to a rise in those living together especially a few weeks if they were loving being a family unit/wfh etc.

People have re-evaluated their lives - expect marriages, divorces, children, cohabitating etc all to be changes people have made. Net effect who knows??? If I weren't too old I may well have decided it was a good idea to have another as my industry is unlikely to pick up until late 2021 at the earliest

I will say that so far I've been astonishingly lucky - the hospital started allowing partners to scans two weeks before my first one, and I've had all the appointments that you normally would as normal apart from booking in, which was over the phone (which felt like a better use of time anyway, the booking-in has always felt like a very long appointment to fill in a form that I could fill in by myself!). I'm nervous about things getting tighter before I give birth, but not nearly as much so as I would have been if it were my first.

How it is here in Africa...

I can’t imagine wanting to bring a child into this. Who knows if / when / how it’s going to pan out? I worry about the future of the children I have, I definitely wouldn’t create another one at the moment.

Our baby was born during the lockdown and the standard of care received was excellent. It certainly didn't appear to be overstretched, and we're in an area with a particularly high number of cases.

I’m due first week of January, so you can guess when I conceived. Absolutely deliberately. I’m self employed in a field that was always going to be very badly affected by COVID, and I could also see it affecting many other areas of my life which I had been prioritising over having a baby (sporting competitions etc).

So knowing it was a year when I would have very little work, and that pregnancy made me feel utterly shit last time, I decided it made sense to be pregnant so that the pregnancy would have as small effect on my work as possible. I’m planning to have a short mat leave so I’m up and working again by Easter.

It’s worked out really well, the times I’ve been feeling at my worst have coincided with lockdowns meaning I haven’t been missing work due to being sick.

This will be our second and final child (will be hopefully sterilised at section) so we are only replacing ourselves and not contributing to growing population for all those worried about that.

Midwives have said they’re inundated so I don’t think they are seeing a drop yet- but lockdown conceived babies will only start being born December anyway.

I'm interested to see what happens long term. I had a baby in lockdown, it was pretty hard in terms of everything suddenly changing and feeling quite lonely and unsupported at times. Maternity leave feels very isolating and I have PND. I'm lucky in that I'm under a perinatal team and do have support and adult contact from outside the home still, when most do not.

One of my work colleagues got pregnant with her first during the pandemic and is complaining constantly about appts and the inability to go to baby shows. I don't have any sympathy, she knew what things were like when she chose to TTC and things are still better now than they were then!

@englishrain yes, what you said. I had baby in June and it's been tough. Tougher than it would have been without Covid. I hope you carry on getting the support you need and start to feel better!

My friend is pregnant, due in March. When they knew they were pregnant they got a dog(!!!) and now moans that all baby shopping is online and dad can't go to scan and will have to labour alone

Not knowing when it's going to end doesnt help. Sadly women don't have all the time in the world to conceive.

@tallbirduk

I can’t imagine wanting to bring a child into this. Who knows if / when / how it’s going to pan out? I worry about the future of the children I have, I definitely wouldn’t create another one at the moment.

But it sounds like your family was complete already? As you said, who knows when it'll all be over, so for many other people the choice is TTC in a position of uncertainty or accept they may not be able to start or complete their families as you were able to. As I said, I really didn't expect to get pregnant so quickly but that was largely because it took me over two years to carry a pregnancy past the first trimester the first time round; I was expecting this one to take longer as (obviously) I'm now older. Putting it off until things look 'certain' to even stop actively avoiding pregnancy didn't feel like an option.

@Hardbackwriter you're right, it is usually the people that have completed their family that come up with the 'oh couldn't be bringing a child into this mess'. There are so many on the ttc board that have been trying for a long time. Easy for people to give their opinion on something that doesn't affect them!
One thing I've come to realize is there is no right time. We've been putting off another baby for the past two years until the right time ie bigger house, better job etc. Now we have those things and at our 'right time' covid happened. There is no right time. Best of luck in your pregnancy.

As a midwife - it's definitely gone up - the amount of women due from January - April is much higher than usual

@iolaus I was in hospital this evening and the sonographer said the same!

I think it is likely that the short-term impact of COVID19 is being overestimated and the long-term impact is being underestimated.

There will be a drop in conceptions in the pandemic, although this will to a certain extent be counterbalanced by those people who decide "I'll go for it this year as this and next year are going to be shit years for work anyway."

I think the overall trend over the next decade is likely to be down, though, as there is so much gloom and worry in the air right now. We were warned for years that a pandemic might happen. Then it did happen. People are going to wondering what other black swan type events might happen too.

@Namechangedforthisoct2

I think the opposite and there’s going to be a baby boom

I think this too. I remember reading quite a few accident stories in the first lockdown people have more time than ever WFM must have perks!

[quote TheDailyCarbuncle]@Bikingbear because at a certain point, a lack of young people and an over abundance of older people becomes a serious economic problem. On a very basic level you need people who are starting out in their careers as much as people who are established - there needs to be a pipeline of new blood in every business. 'Overpopulated' as a lazy term that sees people as numbers - the composition of the population is important, including age, skill level, medical need etc. A population that has a very high number of older people who don't work and who have high medical need and a very low number of working, tax-paying young people will struggle massively. In order for there to be young adults available in twenty years' time, people have to be having babies in certain numbers now. If they're not, the young population will not keep up with the older population. It's already a serious issue in Japan, where the birth rate is extremely low. The obvious solution is to bring young people in from other countries, but people are such fuckwits about immigration that they'd rather tank their economy than admit that foreign workers are vital. The NHS already relies massively on non-UK born staff.

The lack of a strong, working-age population can decimate a country. Just look at Ireland post-famine or any African country that was plundered by colonists. It can take generations to recover. There seems to be an assumption that the UK will always have inward migration but post Brexit there may be a huge jump in people leaving and not coming back. That combined with a low birth rate can spell huge problems for a country. People seem to forget that one of the basic things needed for business is staff - no people, no business.[/quote]
There won't be an abundance of old people. Life expectancy is stagnating. The housing crisis, it's impact on mental health and the related physical health consequences, is undoubtedly contributing towards that.

We have hundreds of thousands of redundancies, and people already out of work.

Instead of continuing to exploit cheap labour (British born or not) we need to start paying living wages, provide decent working conditions, and offer access to stable affordable housing.

Also why assume people will want to keep emigrating here? There are more attractive alternatives.

Longer-term, robots are going to take lots of jobs (another reason why we need to look at universal basic income).

Long-term full-time WFH will have more of an impact than a temporary lockdown.

So many people, especially younger ones, meet their partners (and wider social circle) through work.

Lots of people were struggling to meet partners even before social distancing. I know several people whose only option has been online dating and it doesn't suit everyone. I'm no historian and don't know how couples formed in past generations but what we are doing today isn't working great and the shutting off of social events won't help.

I'd also be interested to see what trends there are in the number of marriages in the coming years.

There definitely won't be any babies born to lesbians in January due to lockdown and clinics being closed.