Lockdown or loneliness? Covid brought on a ‘kind of stressful’ baby boom in Australia

A pandemic might not seem like the ideal time to have a baby, but new data backs up the idea that Covid precipitated a baby boom.

According to an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report – Australia’s mothers and babies – a record 315,705 babies were born in 2021, while the birthrate itself was up to 61 per 1,000 women of reproductive age from 56 per 1,000 the year before.

For Lynette Thomson, who conceived her daughter, Lorelai, in lockdown, it was a trying time.

Living in London, she returned to Australia while she was pregnant, without her husband – who then did not meet Lorelai until she was three months old.

“It was kind of stressful, really,” Thomson said. “I found out I was pregnant in November 2020 and my UK visa was ending in December.

“I had to leave England and he hadn’t heard anything about his visa, so I left England pregnant and not knowing when I’d see him again.”

AIHW’s spokesperson, Deanna Eldridge, said the “high numbers do align with speculation of a Covid baby boom”, but she pointed out that, in general, birthrates had been declining.

“The birthrate does remain lower than the most recent peak in 2007 of 66 per 1,000,” she said.

“We actually saw a steady decline in the birthrate from 2016 down and 2020 was the lowest birthrate since the AIHW started collecting the data. 2020 was … part of a continuing downward trend, but in 2021 we did see a rebound in the birthrate.

“We will continue to monitor in future years to see if the higher numbers continue, plateau, or continue on a downward trend. Most babies conceived in the 2020 lockdowns would have been born in 2021, so the high numbers do align with speculation of a Covid baby boom.”

At the start of this year, the federal government released its latest population statement, which showed a similar trend. People “adapted to the uncertainty of the pandemic and quickly caught up on delayed childbearing plans”, it said.

The AIHW report shows the birthrate was relatively steady at 60 births per 1,000 women of reproductive age at the start of this century, and started going up in 2004, when the then treasurer, Peter Costello, introduced the baby bonus – a lump sum payment to new parents.

The rate rose to 65.8 in 2007, then started declining and by 2017 was 59.7. It dipped to 56.1 in 2020, before recovering in 2021.

The AIHW report also found that the average maternal age had risen from 30 in 2011 to 31.1 in 2021, and more than nine in 10 babies born to women aged 35 and older were a healthy weight and not born prematurely. Fewer women were smoking in pregnancy, and about one in three births were by caesarean section.