Baby Boom 2009

Looks like I will be busier and busier at work pretty soon....

I am sorry, but as the roof was rattling on my house.... Making babies was the last thing on my mind :)

Article: Houston Chronicle-Cindy George
Houston doctors foresee a baby boom 9 months after Ike
Doctors who work in Houstons busiest maternity ward say theyre expecting an especially bustling June, leading some to conclude that Hurricane Ike was the perfect storm for making babies.
Its been eight months since Ike knocked out the regions electricity, leaving many with no television, Internet access or other distractions for days, if not weeks. Now theres a curious bump in the number of women who are rounding out their third trimesters of pregnancy.
Several obstetrical practices associated with The Womans Hospital of Texas are extra-busy these days with prenatal care.
I looked, somewhat in shock, at my little book of deliveries for June, and its 26, said Dr. John Irwin, president of Obstetrical and Gynecological Associates.
He routinely delivers 15 to 20 babies a month and called the Ike boomlet a real phenomenon. His colleagues in the 35-physician practice have seen a similar increase in patients who probably conceived during the powerless days after Ike.
Theres about a 25 percent increase in the number of deliveries coming up in mid-June to mid-July, said Irwin, also chief of surgery service at Womans Hospital.
At a hospital that ranks in the top five for births statewide, that means at least 100 more bundles of joy this summer. We are well-prepared for it, said hospital CEO Linda Russell. We have just opened up a new wing with 92 additional beds.
The hospital usually delivers around 8,000 babies annually. In 2008, the facility clocked more than 9,000 births and expects to break that record this year. And because August, September and October traditionally have the most deliveries, the hospital will require additional staff for five months this year, Russell said.
Storms and blackouts are routinely remembered with baby bounties. But this time, with the recession creeping in, folks had multiple reasons to stop going out and start snuggling in.
Dr. Ferdinand Plavidal, chief of obstetrics at Womans, delivered nine babies last July. A year later, he has 20 scheduled. Most of those women conceived in October, said Carol Mello, a registered nurse in Plavidals practice.
Mello cant explain the timing, unless everybody got back to normal, she said.
Other Houston birthing centers, including The Methodist Hospital and the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston -- which ranks among the top 10 hospitals in births statewide -- arent ready to predict an Ike baby boom. Other OB-GYNS say the same, but that might be because some far-along mothers have yet to tap into prenatal care.
Dr. Rakhi Dimino, an obstetrician/gynecologist with Houston Womens Care Associates, is sure theres something to this Ike baby boom.
Shes due June 10.
She was on call at Womans as the hurricane passed over, and and left around noon that Saturday. She was with her husband at home until her office reopened the following Tuesday.
So what was happening at the Dimino home those two and a half days?
What everybody else in Houston was doing, said Dimino, 33, whose baby will be her first. You can only do so much when theres no television, nothing open and theres nowhere to go.