German politicians have been trying to improve the nation's flagging birthrate for years. The answer, it seems, lies not in childcare subsidies or school places but in a successfully staged World Cup, with a bit of good weather thrown in.

Nine months after the Uefa World Cup it is German midwives who are having to be on the ball as the country celebrates an unprecedented baby boom, being attributed to the euphoria of last summer, when the team performed well and the nation basked in a successful tournament.

A survey by Die Zeit shows that in some parts the birthrate last month was up by almost 30% on the same period last year. The development is welcome in a country with one of Europe's lowest birthrates at around 1.4 children per woman.

The offspring have been dubbed the Klinsi Generation after the football coach Jürgen Klinsmann, who unexpectedly led the national team to third place. The success of the team, the spectacular weather and the feelgood factor created by staging a party to which all the world was invited, is all thought to have played a significant role.

Jennifer Koch and her boyfriend Tobias Amend, from Hamburg, admit the positive mood meant that they had more than just football on their minds. "It was around the time Germany won against Sweden," Ms Koch said. "We were so euphoric and we had to channel our joy somewhere after the match was over." Their first child was born nine months later.

Die Zeit, which questioned maternity units and birth clinics, reported a 29% rise in Bremen and 28% in Chemnitz. The full results will not be known until they are gathered by the Federal Office of Statistics next year, but the trend is clear, according to Rolf Kliche, head of the Dr Koch Birth Clinic in Kassel, which saw a 25% rise.

"The World Cup meant that people were in a constantly good mood for a month or so, which raised the amount of happy hormones and meant that people were ready for sex and their bodies more open to becoming pregnant," he said. "If we had a World Cup in Germany every year I think we'd have found the permanent answer to our low birthrate problem."

He believes that during the World Cup, "Germans learnt that they too could relax and have fun". The Dr Koch clinic first became aware of the impending rise when extra ante-natal clinics had to be arranged to cope with demand, and several couples who had been trying for some time to get pregnant without success, found that they were expecting. They were cheered on by the German television comic Harald Schmidt, who urged the nation to use the World Cup as a good excuse to procreate. He coined the motto: "A child for the Kaiser" - referring to the German footballing hero Franz "Kaiser" Beckenbauer.

Most took it in good humour, but Schmidt's campaign also upset a few, with its none-too subtle nod to the "child for the Führer" reproduction drive during the Third Reich, which goes a long way to explain why Germans are uneasy about being told they must deliver on demand.