Wars are followed by a baby-boom

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As it turns out, this may have very well been the reason for going to war in Iraq: averting a recession and manufacture a fresh new start.

Upon returning from Iraq, most army men have babies. Or at least it seems so at the US military town of Fort Bragg.

Last weekend Rebekah Sandelin, 32, was one of 1,000 mothers from Fort Bragg and the nearby Pope Air Force Base, who attended an event billed as the largest military "baby shower" in history, where local businesses plied the new mothers with baby clothes and other gifts. The baby boom has been so widespread that the Womack Army Medical Centre on the base has had to send military mothers to civilian facilities, where patients have given birth in waiting rooms because of overcrowding. Births were up 50 percent in October at Fayetteville's Ob-gyn clinic. Local shops have run out of baby strollers and cots. Mrs Sandelin, who attended the baby shower with two-month old daughter Rudy told The Sunday Telegraph that when her husband redeployed to Afghanistan earlier this year, "I went to stay with my family in Tennessee. When I came back in August I started noticing pregnant women everywhere.

"The mood is very optimistic right now. Most of the soldiers at Bragg are at home. That's a celebration in and of itself. People are pretty happy about all these births. Resources here are strained. There are not enough doctors and beds but people are taking it in their stride." Sue O'Brien, who leads a group of nurses and social workers who run the New Parents Support Programme at Fort Bragg said: "It's incredible. There are just babies everywhere. You can't go to the market or the stores both on the base and at the mall without seeing them. It's exciting and it is good for morale. We run an informal support group that meets every week. We used to have 30 people at that now we get 100."

Last year the support group employed five people. It now has 19 staff. For the new fathers she runs a Dads 101 class. "It's a hard job to transition from a soldier to being a nurturing dad," she said. "There's been a huge increase in that class too." Fort Bragg officials worked with a community group called Fayetteville Cares to organise the Boots and Booties baby shower, an American tradition where new mothers are given gifts to help with their new arrival.

Kirk de Viere, chairman of Fayetteville Cares, said: "We're getting about 400 births a month at multiple hospitals in the community. Everyone got a bag full of diapers and lotion and a laundry bag full of goodies; some got a bigger present like a car seat and one person won a car.

Source: tlg

Overheard,war, demographics, baby boom, soldiers, military, base

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