'Quite the baby boom': Texas hospital delivers 107 infants in 91 hours
'This was definitely a record for us,' says director of nursing at Andrews Women's Hospital
Michelle Stemley has been very busy at work.
She's the director of nursing at Andrews Women's Hospital at Baylor Scott & White All Saints Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas, which delivered 107 babies over the course of 91 hours in two separate baby booms at the end of June.
"We experienced quite the baby boom here over a four-day period last week. It was pretty crazy," Stemley told As It Happens guest host Duncan McCue.
On June 24, the hospital delivered 52 babies in 47 hours. A few days later, on June 28, they delivered another 55 babies in 44 hours, beating their previous record of 42 babies in 48 hours in 2018.
'Definitely a record for us'
The hospital is already known for its high volume of deliveries, averaging 16 a day, according to a press release. The Andrews Women's Hospital specializes in women's health and has a 63-bed neonatal intensive care unit, one of the largest in the state.
Still, Stemley said this was unlike anything she'd experienced before.
"This was really exceptional," she said. "This was definitely a record for us in such a short time to have so many babies born."
She called the experience "super fun," but also "tense and stressful."
Some people had to give birth in operating rooms as the usual delivery rooms were filled up, she said. And the staff worked hard to move people out of the rooms as soon as possible to make room for the next patient.
"We really tried not to rush anybody," she said. "But we definitely were not lingering. We were moving them right away, as soon as they were safe enough to go over to the postpartum floor."
But one thing that made those days easier to deal with was that COVID cases at the hospital were down during that period, she said.
"There actually weren't even any COVID moms in the mix. So that was actually a good thing for us," she said.
The hospital noticed a few trends among the baby names. Six of the baby girls were named Gianna, and Daniel and Atlas were popular names for boys.
So why the sudden surge of babies? Stemley isn't sure, but she's got some theories.
"When the pandemic and the quarantine first started last spring, it was about March in our area, and … we were thinking, OK, people are going to be home, they're not going to have much to do. Maybe we're going to see a baby boom in nine months. Well, that baby boom didn't happen," she said.
"Our theory is that perhaps people were waiting during the beginning of the pandemic, being really careful not to get pregnant while things were so unsure. But then when they started getting comfortable with the new way of life and with the economy starting to pick back up a little bit, everybody just got pregnant at the same time."
And she doesn't expect things to slow down any time soon.
"Our volumes are still up really high, so we're not expecting it to trickle down, at least in the next couple of months."
Written by Sheena Goodyear. Interview produced by Katie Geleff.
