In the midst of a baby boom of postwar proportions, the first French newborns of 2003 were delivered safely yesterday despite a strike by more than half the country's obstetricians. "Local authorities around the country have put emergency procedures into action, and so far we have managed to avoid any major dramas," a health ministry spokesman said. "But it is hardly a happy new year for expectant mothers." Obstetricians in private maternity clinics, which delivered more than 45% of the near-record 771,000 babies born in France last year, had warned earlier this week that they would stop work from midnight...