P.E.I. sees 'considerable increase' in boy births

Boys born on P.E.I in 2015 outnumber girls by the highest ratio in about 20 years.

According to Island birth statistics, there were 726 boys born last year, compared with only 596 girls. That's 122 boys for every 100 girls born. The usual ratio is about 104 male births to 100 female births.

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"It's a considerable increase. With respect to the norm, it certainly stands out as an interesting statistic," said Owen Phillips, senior analyst in the Vital Statistics program at Statistics Canada.

There would be about a 1-in-500 chance of seeing this high of a discrepancy among 1,300 births, he said. But he noted such "rare events" would be more common in provinces like P.E.I., where there are relatively fewer births.

Rate an anomaly

Births generally even out over time, noted Dr. Lynne McLeod, head of maternal fetal medicine at the IWK children's hospital in Halifax.

"At first glance I thought 'Wow, what an unusual trend, this is a little more discrepant than what I've seen in other Maritime provinces,'" she said.

"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."

She expects a return to the norm in 2016, but if the boy baby boom becomes a trend, it would be something researchers would examine more thoroughly, said McLeod.

"In general, it's a roll of the dice when anyone embarks on a pregnancy and in general it's usually within a percent or so ratio of males to females," she said.

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