A month ago we reported on the Czech Republic having the second lowest fertility rate in the world. Now the Statistics Office has registered a positive blip in the figures - an unexpected rise in new-borns in the first quarter of this year.
It appears that babies in the Czech Republic are on their way at last, as more and more Czech women from the 1970's boomer generation are no longer putting off having their first child in favour of careers or post-graduate studies. On Wednesday the Czech Statistics Office released new information that roughly a thousand more mothers gave birth in the first quarter in 2004 than the previous year. The exact number of new babies is 23, 494. In the context of a miserable Czech fertility rate, the lowest in the world behind only Ukraine - that's a little something to cheer about.
Along with the rise in births, the Statistics Office has mapped a drop in the number of abortions around 1, 000 less than this time last year. An equally positive development seen by many is an apparent shift in social attitudes towards having children out of wedlock - leaving young couples the freedom to plan a family without being frowned upon by society. Under communism Czechoslovakia had one of the lowest figures in the world for the number of children born out of wedlock.
Still, don't expect a revolution.
According to experts even the sudden rise in the number of births in this year's first three months will not help raise the overall fertility rate of just 1.18 children per woman.
In a population of ten million two hundred thousand, one study comes up with a rather frightening prediction: that if the overall downward trend continues, there will only be 60, 000 Czechs left in 300 years time.
