Babies: they're everywhere, especially when we fly coach. But how much do we really know about them? Ken Jennings of Jeopardy! fame asked if he could spend April debunking some persistent misconceptions about babies, in hopes that it will persuade the universe to deliver Beyoncé's twins this month. Hey—she canceled Coachella on doctor's orders. It could happen.
The Debunker: Do Blackouts and Blizzards Cause Baby Booms?
If anecdotal news accounts are to be believed, nothing gets couples hot and bothered like a good hurricane, power outage, or terrorist attack. Hospitals are readying their maternity wards, the media will report! Exactly nine months after (Hurricane Andrew, the Oklahoma City bombing, Snowpocalypse, etc.) there's going to be a baby explosion! Then when the nine-month-mark arrives, it's easy for reporters to find an obstetrician or hospital that did, indeed, see an upswing. It's counterintuitive, but lots of people believe it's true: a working television and the ability to leave the house are apparently the only thing keeping American couples from a never-ending yearlong wave of fertile unprotected sex.
Actual attempts to study the phenomenon reveal a different story. In June 2002, checking up on the predicted post-9/11 baby bump, The New York Times reported that "it will never happen, not to the extent people might think." The first research in the field was done by J. Richard Udry in 1970. He found that the birth rate in New York City showed no statistically significant change following the famous 1965 blackout, despite many news reports to the contrary. It turns out there are other things to do in the dark, like play Scrabble by candlelight. The media cherry-picked certain hospitals that saw birth bumps, but ignored others that didn't fit the narrative.
A 2010 study led by an economist at my own alma mater, Brigham Young, paints a more complete picture of how this plays out. By comparing the severity of Gulf Coast hurricanes to ensuing changes in the birth rate county by county, the researchers demonstrated that every day of a storm advisory will bump up the subsequent birth rate by two percent, but an actual hurricane warning will lower the birth rate by the same margin. In other words, there's not a universal rule linking news events to conceptions. That's a mis-conception. Sometimes the exact opposite happens.
Quick Quiz: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the post-World War II "baby boom" officially ended in what election year?
Ken Jennings is the author of eleven books, most recently his Junior Genius Guides, Because I Said So!, and Maphead. He's also the proud owner of an underwhelming Bag o' Crap. Follow him at ken-jennings.com or on Twitter as @KenJennings.