Lockdown bambino bust: nine months on, Italian births fall 22 percent

FILE PHOTO: A woman wearing a protective mask plays with a child near Pincio Terrace, amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Rome, Italy October 13, 2020. REUTERS/Yara Nardi/File Photo

ROME/BERLIN (Reuters) - Maybe it was the stress. Maybe it was being cooped up with the mother-in-law. But the numbers are in, and one effect of the coronavirus lockdown is now clear: people made fewer babies. A lot fewer babies.

Births in Italy in December - exactly nine months after the country went into Europe's first lockdown - plunged by a whopping 21.6%, according to figures from a sample of 15 Italian cities released this week by statistics agency ISTAT.