Posted on 10/25/2005 1:01:19 PM PDT by GOPGuide
Maternity hospitals around the Czech Republic are bursting at the seams. The annual birth rate in the Czech Republic has been slowly increasing over the last five years, but recent weeks have seen an unusually high number of births.
The number of babies born in the first six months of 2005 has increased by roughly ten percent compared to the same period last year. Staff at maternity hospitals say they are exhausted and are running short of necessary supplies. Professor Zdenek Hajek from Prague's maternity hospital U Apolinare says they are almost at full capacity.
"We have to find emergency beds in other departments of our clinic if our neonatal ward is full. And if those beds were not enough we would have to ask other maternity hospitals in Prague to admit the mothers from us."
In the long term, the Czech Republic's fertility rate has been described as one of the lowest in the world and various socio-economic factors have been blamed for it. Demographers have even warned that if the trend continued, in 300 years there would be only 60,000 Czechs left. The current increase in the number of births is likely to slightly improve the grim statistics. Professor Zdenek Hajek has an explanation for the trend.
"It is a repercussion of the baby-boom in the 1970s. Czech women no longer have their first child at 20 but much later, in line with the trends in the developed countries of Western Europe. So many of the baby-boomers who were born in 1974 and 1975 are just now having their first babies."
Currently Czech women have their first child at the average age of 26.3 years. In Prague the average age is 28 years.
Eastern Europe ping.
This seems to be a trend in Eastern Europe.
Russia's birth rate has gone up over the past few years, along with Slovakia, Poland and Estonia as far as I know.
Are they Czechs or an imported Muslim population that is having all these babies?
What is that--about 10 centimeters?
Send every baby home with a can of SPAM in the crib.
This means they're getting beautiful bouncing babies... or rather bouncing Czechs!
"Are they Czechs or an imported Muslim population that is having all these babies?"
The Muslims are heading to Western Europe because the East can't afford the big welfare states that the West can.
Also Czech Republic is 95% Czech and less than 1% muslim, so it looks like these are Czech babies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Czech_Republic
Ethnic groups: Czech 90.4%, Moravian 3.7%, Slovak 1.9%, Polish 0.5%, German 0.4%, Silesian 0.1%, Roma 0.1% (those officially claiming so, unofficial estimate is cca 2%), Hungarian 0.1%, other 2.8% (March 2001)
If the Czechs are like the Slovaks who used to be their countrymen, they are good Catholics and are getting back to lots of babies.
At least that's the way it is in my Slovak parish!
But the boomer echo is still having significantly fewer children than their parents, correct? If they are having them later that seems likely.
netmilsmom, are you saying you live near Slovak immigrants in Michigan???
Are they having a number of babies?
"But the boomer echo is still having significantly fewer children than their parents, correct? If they are having them later that seems likely."
Eastern Europe's birth rate fell because of turmoil after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But now that many of these countries have improving economies, it seems some Eastern nations are seeing a rise in the birth rate.
>>netmilsmom, are you saying you live near Slovak immigrants in Michigan???
Are they having a number of babies?<<
Why yes!
http://www.saintcyrils.org
That is my parish. I'm unusual with only two. Many of these families have four to ten kids.
That's the first thing I thought of.
Thanks
My wife stated in the last two summers she has never seen so many pregnant ladies in Volzhsky and Volgograd as now. At the same time everyone is telling me the economy is improving, and I think the two are tied together.
has your wife noticed a similar trend in other Eastern nations, if she has traveled to other countries other than Russia?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.