Babies, babies, babies.

Thursday, November 30, 2000

Babies, babies, babies.

Austin Medical Center has been experiencing a baby boom lately.

"It seems like a lot of people wanted to have a baby in the new millennium," said Nancy Hoversten, nurse-manager of the Women’s Special Care Unit. "Right now we’re about 20 percent ahead from this time last year."

It may not seem like much for larger cities, but Austin Medical Center is averaging about 35 to 40 births a month. Recently seven of the eight available cribs were occupied by newborns.

"Six to seven is really good for us," Hoversten said.

In addition to parents trying to get in on the millennium craze, the demographics of Austin are changing, Hoversten said. Younger couples are moving to Austin and having children.

Of course, the boom is welcomed by nurses and staff.

"For us, busy is fun," Hoversten said.

AMC hasn’t felt the need to add staff to accommodate for the trend, but they may need to if the trend continues, she said. Currently there are about 20 nurses on staff.

While they’re not adding staff just yet, the medical center will start remodeling the unit in January, not only to make more room, but simply because it was time for a facelift. But the renovations shouldn’t affect patients.

"We’re taking special care not to disturb the delivery of care to the patient," Hoversten said.

In fact, AMC was one of the first medical facilities in the state to accommodate the entire process – labor, delivery, recovery and postpartum – all in one room. It’s common practice now, but AMC was on the forefront of that 13 years ago.

Hoversten hopes the outcome of the remodeling will help the medical center to continue to be on the cutting edge and to serve the increasing number of parents in the community.