This year is turning out to be a banner year for births at Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News, Virginia, but not necessarily amongst patients. Instead, 12 employees in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) were all pregnant at the same time in the early months of the year!
According to a TODAY story, 10 registered nurses, one nurse practitioner, and one unit secretary will welcome or have welcomed babies this calendar year.
Already two of the 12 women have given birth — one in March and one in May. Four more babies are due in July, with three expected in August, plus one each in September, October, and November. Nine moms learned their baby’s gender. Six girls and three boys are on the way, and three moms chose to be surprised.
In an emailed comment, a hospital spokesperson noted, “This is the most [employee babies] we have had historically in one year in our unit. Five are first-time moms.”
TODAY quoted second-time mom Haley Bradshaw, who is due in July with a son, saying, “We all feel extremely supported and we don’t have to worry about much if anyone needs anything. We’re all here to step in and help if someone takes a break or has a doctor’s appointment. We have each other’s backs.”
Her coworker Jackie Cox, also due in July with her fifth child, a daughter, added, “We work better as a team because we know what we’re in for.”
With 450 beds, Riverside Regional Medical Center is the 10th largest hospital in Virginia. Its NICU employs 52 registered nurses, meaning that nearly 20% of their workforce is expecting this year. That’s a lot of overlapping maternity leaves!
When the time comes, the NICU employees should be well cared for, as the hospital’s website lists multiple options for laboring women’s comfort, including “Labor hydrotherapy (two private rooms with labor tubs; showers in all others), Surround sound via patient’s music device through your AV cable, Pink-noise [to] minimize outside noise, Wireless and waterproof fetal monitoring, allowing moms to move freely during labor and for ease of monitoring” and “Family centered C-section, or cesarean birth.”
