Conventional wisdom states that any time cohabiting couples in their reproductive years are forced to hunker down together during an inclement event, eventually, they get bored, one thing leads to another, and sooner or later somebody ends up pregnant.
The notion that forced confinement leads to a spike in fertility rates has been debunked several times over; there was no “blackout baby” surge nine months after New York City lost power for 10 hours in 1965. Evidence of “Hurricane Sandy babies,” “blizzard babies” and even “9/11 babies” has been apocryphal at best. Despite stories suggesting otherwise, statistics show that disaster baby booms are urban legends since storms and blackouts don’t cause couples to throw caution and contraception to the wind.
And yet, here we are more, more than half a million deaths later, again scratching our heads over the fact that a serious interruption of everyday life didn’t cause couples nationwide to throw caution and contraception to the wind.