Blackout Fallout

A good reporter's nose for news is never out of the wind. One night last week New York Timesman Martin Tolchin, 37, was visiting a friend who had just had her first baby in Manhattan's Mount Sinai Hospital. Health is Tolchin's regular Times beat, and he immediately noticed a lot of unusual hustle and bustle in the maternity ward. "I've never seen it like this before," said a passing nurse, and she ventured a reason: the great New York City power blackout had taken place nine months before, almost to the day.

Tolchin delightedly followed up her guess. Yes, said Mount Sinai, births were up from the daily average of eleven to an alltime high of 28. Checking other New York hospitals, Tolchin discovered the same general pattern. Bellevue reported 50% more births, Bronx Municipal 100%, St. Luke's 200% . Tolchin thereupon reported his sprightly scoop in the best deadpan manner--through the mouths of others.

He quoted Sociologist Paul Siegel: "The lights went out, and people were left to interact with each other." He got Sociologist Robert Hodge to say: "They didn't-have access to a major source of amusement--television. It's not unreasonable to assume that a lot of sex life went on." Added Mount Sinai Obstetrician Richard Hausknecht: "It's quite possible that there were a number of unplanned pregnancies." Said Dr. Christopher Tietze, research director of the National Committee on Maternal Health: "If it should be true, I would think it's partly because people may have had trouble finding their accustomed contraceptives." A brand-new father explained: "It was the candlelight." Said an anonymous official of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America: "All the substitutes for sex--meetings, lectures, card parties, theaters, saloons--were eliminated that night. What else could they do?"

Fertile Crises. Tolchin himself refrained from musing over the possible effect of the full moon on the blackout night--or whether the illegitimate birth rate had also gone up as a result of the long night spent by some in offices. With the impeccable restraint of a good Timesman, Tolchin merely hinted that many Americans apparently require crisis nights to get interested in fertility rites; he found statistics showing that the national birth rate jumped markedly nine months after Pearl Harbor and after the outbreak of the Korean War. In any case, he added, sociologists had predicted all along that the New York blackout would "provide a rich mine for behavioral, sociological and psychological discovery."

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