What effects has the Covid pandemic, and the lockdown in particular, had on sexuality and fertility? A recent study analyzed the birth rate from January 2018 to the first half of 2021 in 24 European countries with the specific aim of verifying whether, as in previous pandemics of the 20th and 21st centuries, there has been a decrease in births around 9-10 months after the peak of infections.
The results indicate that, net of the seasonality of births, the month of January 2021 was the only month with a significant difference in live births. A decline of -14.1% was observed from the average number of live births in January 2018 and 2019. Nationwide, this decline was observed 9-10 months after the epidemic peaks in 13 countries. The duration of the various lockdowns was the variable that had the strongest association with this decline, while having higher per capita income may be a factor limiting this decline. At the same time and similarly to the other pandemic waves, a rebound in births compared to previous years occurred in March 2021 in 13 countries.
The question to ask is the following: why, in spite of a greater time available, consequent to the social confinement measures, have we incurred in a significantly lower number of conceptions?
The first answer is that people probably had a decidedly lower sexual frequency than the norm. This study on the Italian population demonstrated both that vulnerability to stressful life events (symptoms of stress, anxiety, depression, and relationship conflicts) had a strong impact on sexual frequency and sexual function. It seems that more women paid the price, who has temporarily or permanently lost their job and who has experienced the lockdown away from their partner. At the same time, it has emerged that having adequate sexual frequency helps improve psychological and relational indicators.
If this is valid for the recreational component of sexuality, we can hypothesize that the post-traumatic event to which we have all been subjected has also had an impact on fertility: in fact, it is known how much the psychological component is certainly connected to the reproductive capacity of both men.
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