What If No Babies Were Born For A Year?

There is a serious crisis. Stores are overflowing with baby diapers. Doctors and nurses are in a panic. Teachers breathe a sigh of relief.

What single event could cause all of these seemingly unrelated events to happen simultaneously?

The answer is no babies being born for an entire year. Things would be crazy for a bit, and there would be some societal changes, but a year without any newborns might not be quite as bad as you might think.

For this hypothetical scenario, let's assume that the last baby to be born for an entire year was brought into the world on December 31, 2023, at 11:59 p.m. From January 1st, 2024, 12:00 a.m. to December 31, 2024, 11:59 p.m., there will be no babies born.

This means for exactly 365 days, no new human life will arise on planet Earth. Scientists and doctors knew something was wrong long before this moment in time, however.

The problems began approximately 9 months ago.

It would be around March of 2023 that obstetrician-gynecologists, or OB/GYNs would first notice something was wrong.

At this point, there would be a drastic decrease in the number of new patients showing signs of pregnancy.

Tests would be done, experts would gather to discuss the phenomenon and the scientific community would come to the shocking conclusion that no new babies would be born in 2024.

The question then becomes, what effects would this phenomenon have on the world’s population?

As of right now, there are approximately 8,045,311,000 on planet Earth. Needless to say, the rapid population growth and the need for energy and resources to support such a large population have put a huge strain on our planet.

On average, 367,726,270 babies are born every day. That is 15,322 births an hour, 255 in a minute, or 4.25 babies every second.

That’s a lot of babies, which is why the population has been increasing since the dawn of humanity.

If no babies were born for one whole year, the population would obviously decline, as just because there are no births doesn’t mean there won’t be any deaths.

60.95 million people are expected to die in 2024, or around 167,000 people a day.

Since there won’t be any new births to offset this number, the world population will decline to around 7,984,361,000 by the beginning of 2025.

Before we discuss what the world would look like during the year without babies, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention that 3 months into 2024, people would start getting pregnant again.

This is because 9 months later, it would be 2025, and babies would once again be crying in hospitals as they are brought into the world.

It’s hard to predict people’s reactions to a full year without babies.

Some might find it nice as there would certainly be fewer crying infants in restaurants and on planes.

Others would be in big trouble as certain industries rely on a constant flow of newborns to keep business going.

In this scenario, we are assuming that births stop due to some unknown phenomena, but doctors quickly discover they will resume the following year.

Because if women stopped getting pregnant unexpectedly and there was no explanation, there would be mass hysteria.

Doctors and scientists would scramble to figure out what was going on as doomsayers declared that the end of times had begun.

What would happen to those people and industries that rely on newborn babies and their futures?

However, since OB/GYNs see pregnant women almost daily, they would notice the lack of pregnancies much quicker.

The nurses and doctors that have dedicated their lives to ensuring patients have safe deliveries would need to migrate into different fields.

Some doctors and nurses may find themselves moving into general practices and enjoying it.

This could actually develop into a major problem in the future when babies start being born again.

In 2025 when pregnant mothers pour into delivery rooms, hospitals could find themselves short-staffed in maternity wards.

Either way, there would be a whole year that entire sections of hospitals across the world would either remain empty or be converted to different specialties while no babies were being born.

Then there are schools. If no babies were born in 2024, business would continue as usual in the millions of schools across the world.

However, by 2029 some changes would need to be made. 5 years after no babies were born and the missing generation would have been ready to start school, kindergarten classes would be eerily empty.

Baby product companies would definitely have a rough year in 2024 if no infants were born.

It wouldn’t cause major corporations like Johnson and Johnson, Pampers, or Gerber to go out of business, but it would have some detrimental effects on their bottom line.

This means there would be a surplus of diapers, pacifiers, and baby food on the shelves of every store.n.

This may lead to some companies filing for bankruptcy or being acquired by larger businesses.

After women started becoming pregnant again in March of 2024, it would be clear that things were going to return to normal in 2025.

This would result in companies rehiring laid-off employees to ramp up production for the return to normalcy.

So, in reality, many businesses would only suffer for the 3-month gap when there was no sign that any new babies would be born between January and March of 2024.

There would definitely be panic until doctors and scientists figured out what was going on, but once a female became pregnant and 9 months later gave birth on January 1, 2025, people would look back on 2024 as just a weird anomaly.

The decline in population from a single year of no babies would be about .75%, so it would be a relatively insignificant dip in the grand scheme of things.

This could lead to major advances in fertility research, our understanding of the human body, and medicine.

There would likely be unfreseen benefits and discoveries made from the research conducted to understand why no babies were being born.

When you really think about it, a year without babies wouldn’t be so bad.

The population around the world would rebound almost immediately, and all of the jobs and companies affected by no babies being born in 2024 would eventually recover.

All in all, this phenomenon would end up being a footnote in history books, and things would return to normal soon after the first baby of 2025 was born.