Did last year's winter storm result in a "baby boomlet?"

Aislyn Gleghorn, now 4 weeks old, may find she has a certain fondness for windstorms when she grows up.

After all, she was conceived during the great Hanukkah Eve Wind Storm of 2006, which left more than a million Puget Sound residents without electricity — some for days.

Aislyn's mother, Charity Gleghorn, remembers Friday, Dec. 15, very well. A power outage had shut down Microsoft, where her husband works, so he stayed home. She and Tyler had just moved into their new home in Renton, which was empty save for some personal effects and a bed.

What's a young couple to do?

Is Aislyn, born a bit early on Aug. 31, part of a "baby boomlet" resulting from the powerful storm?

Although statistics are ambiguous, several hospitals, including Swedish Medical Center and Tacoma General, reported small upticks in baby deliveries for September.

Some in the baby-delivery business say they're sure of the connection.

"You always know — it's like clockwork — a snowstorm, a windstorm; this is nothing unusual," said Beverly Holland, director of Women & Children's Services at Swedish Medical Center. "It's a known phenomenon."

That may be, but for Felicia Atterberry, a seven-year breast-cancer survivor, conception was a complete surprise.

"I was told I could have no more children," said Atterberry, who was in the middle of a yearlong course of chemotherapy when the storm knocked the power out at her Renton home.

She and her husband, Charles, and their son, Malik, now 9, took refuge at Charles' mother's house. On Saturday morning, the couple snuggled in their bed on the floor, relishing the warm, cozy house.

At Swedish Medical Center, baby Aneesah arrived Sept. 1.

Now a month old, Aneesah has a headful of hair and is tickled to see herself in the mirror, smiles at her brother and gurgles at the sounds of her parents' voices.

Aneesah was one of 604 babies delivered at Swedish in September, 12 more than in September last year. August was also up — by 67 more babies than last year.

Births are also up at Tacoma General, where 17 moms gave birth on a single Tuesday last month.

Since mid-September, the hospital has had a 14 percent increase in the average number of births per day compared with the rest of the year, spokesman Todd Kelley said.

At Bellevue's Overlake Hospital Medical Center, statistics indicated more of a blip than a boom: seven more deliveries this September than last year.

Birth-center directors said they don't routinely give pregnant women the third degree, so they can't say for sure whether December's storm played a part in any pregnancy.

In general, fertility researchers are skeptical.

"It's an urban legend," says Philip Morgan, chairman of the sociology department at Duke University. For one thing, he says, the vast majority of women of childbearing age are on contraceptives, and a power outage wouldn't make people change that.

The most famously studied blackout, in New York City on Nov. 9, 1965, prompted many news articles nine months later suggesting a "boomlet." After all, some theorized, with the TV not working and all those candles about, what else was there to do?

Actually, says Morgan, a blackout may be the anti-aphrodisiac. With no TV and schools likely closed, kids may stay up late. People may be stressed out, stranded or busy coping with the cold.

At Group Health, one pregnant woman scoffed when asked if conception occurred during the blackout. She said she had so many layers on, said spokeswoman Katie McCarthy, there was no way her husband could even attempt to touch her.

In 1970, J. Richard Udry, then at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina, looked at birth numbers before and after the blackout and found no "boomlet."

Even so, Udry observed: "Let us not imagine that a simple statistical analysis such as this will lay to rest the myth of blackout babies... .

"It is evidently pleasing to many people to fantasize that when people are trapped by some immobilizing event which deprives them of their usual activities, most will turn to copulation."

Maybe the persistence of the myth turns on our need to feel connected to a historical event, suggests Seattle-area blogger Amy Letinsky, who speculated on the blackout/baby-boom connection.

"I think there's a lot of pride about it," she says. "People like to know they're part of a group."

Carol M. Ostrom: 206-464-2249 or costrom@seattletimes.com