On top of its other problems Haiti is struggling, a year after the earthquake that left more than a million people homeless, to cope with a substantial rise in the birth rate.

The United Nations Population Fund said that by last August the number of pregnancies in the capital had tripled from pre-earthquake levels and that since November many maternity wards in hospitals and in temporary facilities have been overwhelmed.

“It’s normal to get this kind of peak after a crisis,” said Igor Bosc, the fund’s spokesman in Haiti. “And we would expect it to drop back to normal in a few months.”

In April the fund plans to …