A claim is spreading on social media that there have been no births in Italy in three months.
This is false. Official statistics show tens of thousands of births in the last three months. This is supported by various stories in the Italian media of celebrity births, quirky deliveries and tragic tales of abandoned newborns.
The claim (archived here) has appeared across social media in recent weeks, examples here, here, here, here and here.
“So google how many children have been born in Italy in the last 3months,” this post reads. “60 million population .. Zero births. I’m not lying !!”
The origin of the claim is unknown, but many posts link back to an October article on the blogging platform Medium which made the same claim.
Many of the posts make reference to the false claim that COVID-19 vaccines impact fertility, examples here, here, here, here, here and here.
AAP FactCheck has previously debunked baseless claims that the vaccines reduce fertility here and here.
Italy has grappled with declining birth rates for a number of years and the issue has become political.
However, there were still around 400,000 births in the country last year.
The Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat), which releases provisional monthly birth data, has recorded 33,753 births for July 2023 and 33,093 for August 2023 – the most recent month released.
In addition, there are numerous stories from the Italian media confirming births in recent months.
In early September, newborn twins were abandoned by their mother in Palermo, Sicily. There was a similar story from late October in Sardinia.
Also in October, a woman in Lombardy was unable to reach the hospital while in labour and subsequently gave birth in her car.
Other recent stories include a woman from Salerno in southern Italy with Kartagener syndrome who successfully gave birth after a high-risk pregnancy, and a Tuscan hospital where a number of women gave birth in a makeshift delivery room after a recent flood damaged the maternity ward.
The Verdict
The claim that Italy has had no births in the last three months is false.
There are tens of thousands of births every month, according to the Italian National Institute of Statistics.
This is supported by numerous news stories of births in the Italian media.
False – The claim is inaccurate.
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