BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (WBKO) – Med Center Health is seeing a surge in baby deliveries and many believe quarantine is to blame.
The hospital’s baby and delivery floor were booming this week as they say they usually average about 12 babies a day, but that number nearly doubled on Wednesday in a 24-hour period.
“There’s been so many babies being born. They play a lullaby every time a baby’s born and I feel like every, like 10 minutes, we’re like, there’s another one. There’s another one,” said Rachel Tinius, new mother.
This month marks nine months after the start of March’s quarantine.
“We were just planning for that extra surplus of these quarantine babies. We knew this first wave of the quarantine that we would see that about this time. And we have,” said the Mother-Baby Manager at Med Center Health, Kim Dethridge. “When we started to see these moms come in, we just got the plan going to bring in our staff that we needed to get the day done.”
A mother of now three, Tinius surprisingly welcomed one of those 23 quarantine babies into the world Wednesday.
“We basically found out about her during the like initial lockdown of the pandemic. She’s like, a tried-and-true COVID pandemic, baby,” said Tinius.
Because she was one of nearly two dozen mothers in labor, Tinius couldn’t get a bed right away, but her baby Tess wasn’t waiting.
“They were able to stick me in like a C-section room, and we delivered on a stretcher and it was actually great,” she explained. “Like, when you’re at that point in labor, you don’t care one bit, and my doctor was here. The nurses were amazing.”
While some people didn’t follow social distancing guidelines during quarantine it’s safe to say it was probably for the best in some situations.
“Our daughter all she wanted for Christmas this year was a baby sister. We didn’t know the gender so she still doesn’t know she’s getting a baby sister– so we can’t wait to get home. And tell her that she got her Christmas wishes.”
The hospital says all 23 babies delivered were healthy and most of them were set to go home Friday.
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