Prince Edward Island had a baby boy boom in 2015 when the boys outnumbered baby girls by 130. It’s the highest ratio in 20 years.
Birth statistics recorded 726 boys born last year compared with 596 girls, which translates to 122 boys for every 100 girls born. Usually the ratio is 104 males to 100 female births.
“It’s a considerable increase. With respect to the norm, it certainly stands out as an interesting statistic,” according to Owen Phillips, a senior analyst in the Vital Statistics program at Statistics Canada.
In an interview with CBC News, Phillips noted, however, that “rare events” such as this would be more common in P.E.I. due to the low number of births.
Dr. Lynne McLeod, head of maternal fetal medicine at the IWK children’s hospital in Halifax, was impressed. “At first glance I thought ‘Wow’, what an unsual trend, this is a little more discrepant than what I’ve seen in other Maritime provinces, she told CBC News.
“But it still kind of falls in the realm of variation over time. If you look at other research that’s been done it kind of bucks the trend. If anything, there has been at times questions about a decline in males versus female births.”
If the baby boy boom continues it would be something researchers would be looking into more thoroughly McLeod said, but she expects a return to the norm in 2016.
And the three most popular names for those boys were, Oliver, Jack and Mason, in that order.
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