Current events and human coitus

Abstract

Menaker (1970) presented evidence that the daily live-birth conception rate in New York City is about 300-400, and that on the night of the blackout there were possibly 80 (20-25%) fewer. In contrast, he notes evidence that of the City's married couples in the reproductive age range, more than 50% must have been separated on the night in question. So it seems that one copulatory consequence of the blackout was a substantial number of live-birth conceptions to partners not married to one another. One would suppose that births per day in a maternity hospital might roughly form a Poisson distribution. Udry quotes evidence that on one day roughly nine months after the blackout, Mount Sinai Hospital (which averages 11 births per day) had 28. The sum of the terms of the expansion of e-mm/x! for m 11 and x = 28, 29, 30 * * * is 0.000012. So Mount Sinai Hospital was the scene of an unusual occurrence on that day. It seems worth asking whether that hospital has a high proportion of illegitimate births or whether its catchment area contains a large number of women who were, for some reason, at additional risk that night.