In a mountain settlement where silence has long replaced school bells and neighbours are few, a single birth has altered daily life. Pagliara dei Marsi, a remote hamlet in Italy’s Abruzzo region, has spent decades watching its population shrink, leaving cats to dominate its winding lanes and stone walls.
That quiet rhythm changed this year with the arrival of a newborn, an event so rare it drew the entire village together.
A village gathers around a newborn
Lara Bussi Trabucco, born in March, is the first child to arrive in Pagliara dei Marsi in almost 30 years, taking the population to about 20. Her christening, held in the church opposite her home, was attended by every resident – cats included. With no other children in the village, Lara has become an attraction in her own right.
“People who didn’t even know Pagliara dei Marsi existed have come, only because they had heard about Lara,” said her mother, Cinzia Trabucco. “At just nine months old, she’s famous,” reported The Guardian.
Declining birth rate
Her birth has been celebrated as a sign of hope, yet it also reflects the scale of Italy’s demographic challenge. In 2024, the country recorded a historic low of 369,944 births, extending a 16-year decline, according to Istat. The fertility rate fell to 1.18 children per woman of child-bearing age, among the lowest in the EU. Factors include job insecurity, youth emigration, limited support for working mothers, rising male infertility and a growing number of people choosing not to have children.
Preliminary Istat data for the first seven months of 2025 suggests a further fall. Abruzzo has been hit hardest, with a 10.2% drop in births between January and July compared with the same period in 2024. Pagliara dei Marsi, though tiny, reflects a wider national picture of ageing communities, closing schools and mounting pressure on public finances.
“Pagliara dei Marsi has been suffering from drastic depopulation, exacerbated by the loss of many elderly people, without any generational turnover,” said Mayor Giuseppina Perozzi.
Perozzi, who lives close to Lara’s family, said she was grateful to Trabucco, 42, and her partner, Paolo Bussi, 56, for starting a family and hoped their decision might encourage others. Trabucco, a music teacher originally from Frascati near Rome, moved to the village where her grandfather was born after years working in the capital, seeking a quieter place to raise a family. Bussi is a construction worker from the area.
They received a €1,000 “baby bonus”, a one-off payment for each child born or adopted since January 2025 under measures introduced by Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government to address what the prime minister has called Italy’s “demographic winter”. The couple also receive a monthly child benefit of about €370. Their main difficulty is managing childcare alongside work. Italy’s childcare support system remains chronically insufficient, and despite repeated pledges, the government has yet to significantly expand nursery provision. Many women who become pregnant are forced to leave the workforce and later struggle to
The couple are also uncertain about Lara’s future schooling. Pagliara dei Marsi has not had a resident teacher for decades. While infant and primary schools operate in nearby Castellafiume, ongoing closures linked to falling birthrates raise doubts about how long such facilities can be sustained.
Trabucco said financial incentives alone would not reverse the trend. “The entire system needs to be revolutionised,” she said. “We’re a country of high taxes but this does not translate into a good quality of life or good social services.”
Shrinking births, shrinking services
Around an hour away, the city of Sulmona offers another view of the consequences of depopulation. The maternity unit at Annunziata Hospital, serving the city and surrounding towns, faces possible closure after delivering just 120 babies in 2024, far below the 500 required to retain funding. Closure would force expectant mothers to travel about an hour to L’Aquila, raising concerns during emergencies.
“The region is vast and especially in winter, travel conditions can be treacherous,” said Gianluca Di Luigi, a gynaecologist at the hospital. He recalled a woman in labour who became stranded in a snow storm for eight hours. “By the time we got her to the hospital, we had to do an emergency caesarean. This was her first child and she was traumatised by the whole experience.”
Staff campaigning to keep the unit open argue that the 500-birth threshold, set in 2010, no longer reflects reality. “We never did reach the magic 500 here,” said Berta Gambina, a midwife with 39 years’ experience at the unit. “Even in the best of times, we averaged about 380 births a year. But I will do all I can to keep it open – my biggest fear is abandoning pregnant women.”
Ornella La Civita, a city councillor with the centre-left Democratic party, said incentives to boost births were positive but insufficient. “But how can you give women money to have babies but not guarantee them a safe and secure place to give birth?”
Di Luigi added that fertility preservation, including egg freezing, is often overlooked in Italy’s debate. “Ideological thinking in Italy has always been a block,” he said. “But if we want newborns, then we need enlightenment too – yes, provide young people with dignified jobs but let’s start teaching them about preserving fertility.”
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