Is it just the coincidence that so many babies are born in India on January 1?

69,944 babies were born in India on January 1, 2019, said UNICEF. This puts our country at #1 spot on the list of most births on the first day of the year. China, Nigeria, and Pakistan took the following three places with 44,940, 25,658 and 15,112 births respectively.

India accounted for 18 percent of all the births globally. Even last year, on January 1 of 2018, 69,000 babies were born in the country, according to the numbers from UNICEF.

(Courtesy: BabyCenter)

In part, this is completely coincidental. But then there are also the cases where it’s done on purpose.

For instance, there are many cases where parents insist doctors that the baby be born on January 1 for its auspiciousness. Many mothers even risk their lives to delay the delivery – and hold the baby in the womb. Needless to say, this is extremely dangerous both for the mother and baby. And the doctors do advice against this. But then again, Indian parents and families…

Also, there’s another reason. Winter, in India, is treated as wedding season. Lakhs of weddings take place around these 2-3 months. 10-12 months following that, there bound to be a spike in the number of births, which usually falls somewhere between December and January.

(Courtesy: The Vaccine Reaction)

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So, yeah, again, so many babies getting born on Jan 1 is a coincidence as well as planned. But before you take a surprise at such a large number of birth – and ponder of the menace of over-population in the country – should you know that India continues to struggle with infant and neonatal mortality. In 2017, 10,00,000 babies died the day they were born. And 25,00,000 others died within the first month since birth.

Let’s just pray that all these 69,944 babies remain safe and healthy.