Tradition of giving out cigars after a birth

Factual Questions
1

I was commenting on the distinct possibility that my father would be handing out cigars when his grandaughter is born later this summer, but she looked at me like I had two heads. She’s from the middle east and had never heard of such a tradition, and asked me how it got started.

I have no idea, but it seems to go back a long way. I’ve seen it in episodes of “I Love Lucy” from the 50’s, and heard it on tapes of old radio shows from the late 30’s and early 40’s. How did that tradition get started, though? And how universal is it?

2

As a WAG, seeing as cigar smoking didn’t take off in the U.S. until after the Civil War and tax reductions in the 1870s, that the tradition linking the cigar with natal celebration would probably only go back to then. As to how universal it is – surely the bounds would be how available cigars were on a country by country basis.