Baby boom at Arizona hospital: 16 nurses pregnant
The nurses joke that there must be something in the water as they prepare to give birth between October and January.
Sunday 19 August 2018 07:04, UK
There's a baby boom coming to a hospital in Arizona, with 16 nurses preparing to give birth over the coming months.
The intensive care nurses work at Banner Desert Medical Center in Mesa, which is about 20 miles from Phoenix.
They are all expecting between October and January.
Nurse Rochelle Sherman, nearly eight months pregnant, said: "I don't think we realised just how many of us were pregnant until we started a Facebook group."
Her pregnant colleague Jolene Garrow joked: "We all formulated this plan to have the holidays off."
Ms Garrow added that non-pregnant colleagues have been helping by taking care of patients whose illnesses or treatments could be dangerous to expecting mothers and unborn babies.
These include tuberculosis, shingles or chemotherapy because of the radiation.
But Ashley Adkins said that the other nurses might be getting tired of pregnancy-focused conversations, saying: "They just roll their eyes: more baby talk."
Hospital officials have said that a group of floating nurses should be able to cover the workload while the 16 nurses start to take their 12 weeks of maternity leave.