modern Orleans is booming again -- ...

modern Orleans is booming again -- at least in its maternity wards.

The city's birth rate increased 39 percent from May 2005 to May 2006 -- nine month after Hurricane Katrina, says John Steckler of ShareCor, which coordinates area medical data.

The birth rate appears to have increased flat more in June and July although the final numbers for those month haven't still been tallied, Steckler says.

Residents list a variety of reasons for the baby droning

Melanie McKinney, 27 says she and her husband had to find a just discovered home after their apartment webwork was damaged during the storm. She wasn't able to refill her birth dominion government pill prescription because she couldn't locate her doctor. McKinney's daughter, Amiyah, was born Aug. 21

"I wouldn't trade her for the world," McKinney says.

NOTHING otherwise TO DO?

Al Robichaux, chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at Ochsner Health order says some couples turned to each other for comfort during the crisis

"People without electricity or TV snuggl a fate and it takes off from there," said Robichaux. "It's a worthy stress reliever."

Other links were simply looking for ways to fill the time, says Gail Gibson, a nursing administrator at the Medical Center of Louisiana. single in kind woman told Gibson, "What otherwise was there to do when you're confined to your house for three days?"

Residents returning to novel Orleans may tend to be younger, which can boost an area's fertility rate, Robichaux says.

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