From THe Triumph Of Life Over Death Department:

Houston Chronicle: Baby boom part of rebuilding after tsunami's devastation

Giggling women swarm outside a little gray tent in Block D of a sprawling refugee camp. The attraction is one tiny miracle — 2-month-old Asmaul Tzuchina, swaying peacefully in a cloth hammock.

The baby simply known as Tzuchi, which means "pure" in Acehnese, represents hope for women who lost children to the earthquake-spawned tsunami nearly a year ago.

Many grieving mothers are desperate to rebuild family and home, even if the latter is just a plastic tent or a cramped barrack. No one has counted all the pregnant women in Indonesia's tsunami-stricken Aceh province, but UNICEF's Dr. Brian Sriprahastuti says she doesn't need statistics to know what's coming.

"A baby boom," she says. "We have to do that because if not, we will lose a generation in Aceh."

UNICEF estimates more than a third of the 216,000 dead or missing in 12 Indian Ocean countries were children — too weak to run, swim or simply hang on.

Sriprahastuti has noticed a surge in pregnancies since August after a flurry of marriages.

She predicts many of those newlyweds will soon be cradling newborns.
"This is just the beginning," she says, smiling. "We will be very busy next year."