Nine Months After Hurricane Sandy, We Have Baby Boom

Almost the second the lights went out during Hurricane Sandy, sexperts started predicting that all that sweet, sweet hurricane-loving would prompt birth rates to spike. Now, nine months later, babies are popping out left, right, and center in New York and New Jersey.

The jury is still out on whether Will and Kate conceived in an effort to get in on the action.

Hospitals in New Jersey and New York are reporting a marked rise in deliveries — up to 35 percent — during the July-August period. Economics professor Richard Evans explains the phenomenon this way:

People just love hurricanes and sex.

Well, kinda. Imminent life-or-death, or "high-risk" events (think The Day After Tomorrow) don't tend to incite people to go at it like rabbits, probably because of the widespread panic. Still, studies show that incidents deemed relatively "low-risk" — which, for much of inner New York and New Jersey, the October hurricane was — can lead to everyone jumping in the sack.

Historically, events like Pearl Harbor and the Cuban Missile Crisis are rumored to have led to steep birth rises nine months later. (Legend has it that teenagers threw caution out the window and relinquished their virginities in in 1962 when it looked like the U.S. might jump into a full-blown nuclear war.)

A "moderate" amount of fear, according to a recent study, produces aphrodisiac effects. (Who needs oysters when you have high-speed winds?) Paralyzing, heart-pumping anxiety, however, does not. "Severe" advisory warnings, the findings continued, incited lots of sex, and in Hurricane Sandy's case, the lack of power probably helped things along.

As a new dad told CNN:

Well, there was no TV.