Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Editorial
. 2022 Nov 24;37(12):2728-2729.
doi: 10.1093/humrep/deac232.

Live birth numbers undulate as crises come and go

Christian De Geyter  1
Affiliations
Editorial

Live birth numbers undulate as crises come and go

Christian De Geyter. Hum Reprod. .
No abstract available

Keywords: COVID-19; crisis; demographics; live birth numbers; pandemic.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Annual live birth numbers since 1900 in 13 European countries. WWI and WWII coincided with a decrease in live birth numbers, but not in Spain and Switzerland which were not involved. The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) was associated with an immediate decline in live birth numbers in Spain. Of note are the rebounds in live birth numbers after each war and, most recently, 2021 in 13 of 17 European countries after the COVID-19 pandemic. WWI, World War I; WWII, World War II.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

References

    1. Bräuner EV, Hansen ÅM, Doherty DA, Dickinson JE, Handelsman DJ, Hickey M, Skakkebæk NE, Juul A, Hart R.. The association between in-utero exposure to stressful life events during pregnancy and male reproductive function in a cohort of 20-year-old offspring: the Raine Study. Hum Reprod 2019;34:1345–1355. - PubMed
    1. Butie C, Matthes KL, Hösli I, Floris J, Staub K.. Impact of World War 1 on placenta weight, birth weight and other anthropometric parameters of neonatal health. Placenta 2020;100:150–158. - PubMed
    1. De Geyter C, Masciocchi M, Gobrecht-Keller U.. Excess mortality caused by the COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacts birth numbers in European countries. Hum Reprod 2022;37:822–827. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Pomar L, Favre G, de Labrusse C, Contier A, Bouvain M, Baud D.. Impact of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on birth rates in Europe: a time series analysis in 24 countries. Hum Reprod 2022; 10.1093/humrep/deac215. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sear R, Lawson DW, Kaplan H, Shenk MK.. Understanding variation in human fertility: what can we learn from evolutionary demography? Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2016;371:20150144. - PMC - PubMed