SAN ANTONIO — There is a baby boom in the Labor and Delivery Unit at Methodist Hospital right now. 17 nurses have been pregnant right alongside their patients over the last six months.
The due dates for the nurses have been from December 2021 to July of this year. Break room baby showers are a frequent occurrence at the hospital. It is also quite common to hear chatter about the best baby products on the market and what folks are naming their newborns as you walk down the halls.
“Some of my patients have gone through their whole stay and everyone caring for them is also pregnant,” Hayley Seal, RN laughed. “They’ve been like ‘wait a minute, my last nurse is pregnant too!’”
Seal gave birth to her child in February with her colleagues by her side cheering her on during the whole experience.
“When one of us comes in to have our baby, the room is always decorated,” Seal said. “It’s funny, you can go down our baby registries for everyone and if we find a product that someone likes on their registry it’s on everyone’s registry.”
Like Seal, Leslie Maulit, RN says the joy and comradery the pregnancies have created among her colleagues has been an amazing experience.
“It’s honestly been really fun. I feel like we’ve had kind of a sisterhood of traveling pants,” Maulit joked. “We send baby stuff to each other and give each other advice. I know the girls who are on maternity leave right now are giving each other advice and they’re all awake at the same time.”
The nurses all feel that their pregnancies have given them a deeper understanding of what their patients may be going through, which improves the care they are able to provide.
“This definitely helped with my ability to connect even deeper with my patients, especially since I had complications with my delivery and got readmitted [to the hospital],” Seal said. “I’ve really been able to identify with the patients that are going through the same thing. I think it’s helped with the type of patient care I can give.”
Hospital leaders have brought in skilled support to help staff, while each new mom takes her deserved time away from work to care for her newborn.