It’s Sunday morning I’m recovering from the excesses of the night before. After a dose of hangover telly and leftover pizza for breakfast, it’s time to brave the outside world. I jump into my pair Sunday slacks (The kind with an elasticised waistband…don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean) and wobble out into the uncommonly bright April sunshine.

Making my way down to my local café, there in front of me, as is the case everyday (especially on Sunday) are rows upon rows of baby strollers. On cue, as if those little bundles of joy snugly tucked in their mobile cots can sense my pounding headache and the alcohol seeping through my pores, a chorus of WAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH’s drills into me like artillery fire. I try to manoeuvre past the gazillions of bugaboo’s monopolising every square inch of the narrow pavement, but I’m outdone and outnumbered. Welcome to Prenzlauerberg, Berlin!

Prenzlauerberg is not only the delightful neighbourhood once a refuge for East Berlin’s communist-era bohemians and my home for the last three years, but also the district with the highest birth rate in Berlin. Correction: in Germany. Correction: in Europe.

When I first moved here I did not heed my friends warnings, telling me that the coffee’s great there but do you really want to run the baby stroller hurdles everyday? In my naïve optimism, I put their warnings down to district rivalry (which is a very present phenomenon here in old Berlin town) or at least just an exaggeration with only a kernel of truth to it.

Well they certainly didn’t exaggerate and though I don’t’ regret moving here as the coffee is pretty darn good, but Jesus, Mary and Joseph, these people are popping little poop machine’s left right and centre. P’berg’s inhabitants aren’t the Vicky Pollards of Berlin (or her German counterpart Jenny von Marzahn), surprisingly, like me they are all young professionals aged 30 and eeeekkkk – younger!

I live in the epicentre of P’berg’s baby-quake measuring 9 on the baby-scale, down my street alone there are three maternity wear shops. Last summer I couldn’t keep my apartment windows open due to the arrival of 4 newborns in my building, their cry’s echoing throughout the courtyard at 6.00am EVERY morning.

At the risk of stereotyping and geographic profiling, I am going to sketch you a highly subjective anthropological picture of this fascinating urban tribe that is the Prenzlauerberg Mommy. I feel a bit like Diane Fosse in Gorilla’s in the mist. In my time here I have come to identify two main factions of the P’Berg Mommy. Type A, the Latte Macchiato Mom and Type B the Eco or Ethno Mom, both share what I term the Maria complex, a sheer bewilderment and smugness about them, like they were the first to ever push a watermelon sized being out of their bajingos.

Type A: The Latte Macchiato Mom

Location: Kollwitzplatz/Helmholtzplatz

Average Occupation: Designer, Fashion PR consultant, Stylist, Magazine editor, Gallery owner.

Pushchair brand: Bugaboo’s or remake of vintage 50′s strollers

Style: Very style conscious and stylishly un-styled. They were once painfully hip scenesters in the late 90′s/early noughties, but have toned down their styling for a more grown up look.

Identifiable trademarks: Latest Apple Mac notebook and I-Phones.

Eat and Drink: Latte Macchiato and Red Wine.

Offspring: Dressed in baby/toddler adaptation of Comme de Garcons or Marc Jacobs and painfully self-aware. Mini me versions of their parents.

There used to be a time when visiting a local P’Berg café with their babies/toddlers, one was able to get free baby latte’s – basically barista’s put foamed milk into the baby’s bottle. Recently there was a local uproar amongst this tribe; as the popularity of this treat rose so did the prices, now (horror) you have a to pay for your tiny tots foamed milk fix. Scandalous!

Don’t underestimate them, they are a fierce bunch, there have been many instances when people including myself have been unceremoniously knocked to one side or off the pavement by a pushchair advancing from behind. One evening as I walked to Kollwitzplatz I saw an unnerving sight worthy of Ally McBeal fantasy sequence. Lined up side by side was an army of 6 mothers with their Bugaboo tanks advancing in unison towards me like a highly trained Roman battalion.

Type B: The Eco/Ethno Mom

Location: Helmholtzplatz/Pappelallee

Average Occupation: Yoga Instructor, Kindergarten teacher, Craftswoman and casually employed musicians

Stroller brand: Heck they don’t need strollers they wrap them around our waists with tie-dyed organic cotton, swaddled a la mothers in Tibet right?

Style: Tie-dye or batik loose fitted clothing, Mc Hammer type parachute pants, unkempt ‘natural’ hair roots and all, no make up. No identifiable brands, just fair trade or second hand garments. Organic of course!

Identifiable trademarks: An aversion to shaving, apparently hairy armpits helps with the child rearing process and walking barefoot on concrete without a notice for potential hypodermic needles and broken beer bottles.

Eat and Drink: Spelt products, tofu, soya organic everything.

Offspring: Spelt in German is dinkel, so I have come to call their offspring Dinkel Kids. Dinkel Kids commonly run rampage, screaming and terrorising everyone in their immediate vicinity, as God forbid we hinder their natural impulses and development by setting them boundaries.

Despite casting my sardonic and critical eye, it’s actually no bum deal being a parent here, as Germany offers very a generous benefits package. Mothers are allowed six weeks fully paid leave prior to the child’s birth and eight weeks after. The mother or father is then allowed up to three years of unpaid leave to stay at home with the child where your employer is legally obligated to guarantee you your previous position for at least one year if you choose to return. Not to mention a few extra benefits to boot until your child reaches 18. Not a bad deal right? Heck maybe I’ll consider getting knocked up.

But then what do you expect when the country’s Minster for Family Affairs, 50-year-old Ursula von der Leyen is the proverbial poster child for a fecund modern German career woman, boasting 7 children.

When you consider that mine is age group who are supporting an increasingly ageing post war baby boom generation and exhausted pension state on our shoulders, the question is will there be anyone to take care of us selfish individualists when we start getting old and decrepit?

Perhaps the P’Berg Posse have got the right idea and are actually doing their bit for the future. Still, I’m more inclined to agree with Fran Lebowitz’s view on kids:

‘Even when freshly washed and relieved of all obvious confections, children tend to be sticky.’

Heed my warnings dear reader, whatever you do enjoy the coffee in Prenzlauerberg but as in many a forgein land don’t drink the local water, just in case cause there seems to be something in the water around here. In the mean time as I finish writing this I will order another lactose free Café Latte from the barista who seems to be in her 2nd trimester.