Alarming reason why the birthrate in New South Wales has plummeted
The birthrate in public hospitals has plummeted to its lowest level in over a decade and Australia's crisis is to blame, according to new data. Just under 16,000 babies were born in public maternity wards in the first three months of this year. This is the lowest figure of any quarter since records began in 2010, according to an analysis of Bureau of Health Information data. The number of babies born spiked briefly during the pandemic to a high of 19,081 during April to June in 2021, primarily due to an increase in conceptions when people were forced to stay at home. Australian National University demographer Dr Liz Allen said a number of depressing factors were discouraging would-be parents from having children. 'Covid, cost-of-living, climate change, and a growing backdrop of economic downturn creating the perfect storm,' Dr Allen tweeted. She added: 'Time (and data) are showing just how Covid has disrupted families; formation and childbearing. Delayed, hastened, postponed, and forgone births.' But her insights were pounced on by a legion of vaccine skeptics and conspiracy theorists who falsely claimed the downward trend was due to the Covid vaccine. Jamie McIntyre, a controversial Gold Coast entrepreneur, claimed the drop-off was down to a 'not so safe, effective or necessary vaccine, (being) forced upon the elderly, pregnant mums and even children'. The Therapeutic Goods Administration found no evidence that Covid-19 vaccines cause infertility in males or females, or any future infertility in children. Dr Allen hit back at her critics, claiming 'the story of declining births in NSW is a complex social one, not a reductionist anti-vax fearmongering horror story'. 'To suggest Covid vaccinations, or any immunisations for that matter, contributed biologically to declining births is to deny the ample evidence and nefariously co-opt data in a way to strike fear,' she told . 'It is a real shame that instead of talking about the actual reasons for declining births and how to better support families, ill-informed and scurrilous people are misusing falling births data to progress unrelated lines of faux science.' Australian government actuary Karen Cutter said the decline in the birth rate could also be explained by a lack of immigrants coming to Australia in the pandemic years. 'Immigrants are mostly young, and tend to have babies,' she said. 'I suspect the fertility rate for new migrants in the year or two after migrating is well above the population average, so a lack of migration in the last few years may well be having a sizable impact on birth rates now.'