16 Nurses at Same Hospital Are All Pregnant

A baby boom is brewing at a suburban Arizona hospital where 16 intensive care nurses recently discovered they are all pregnant, the AP reports. The nurses at Banner Desert Medical Center in Mesa outside Phoenix joked Friday they thought there was something in the water when it became clear they were all expecting babies between October and January. Nurse Rochelle Sherman, nearly eight months along, says: "I don't think we realized just how many of us were pregnant until we started a Facebook group." Nurse Jolene Garrow jokes, "We all formulated this plan to have the holidays off!" Garrow says that as their pregnancies progressed, the patients began noticing that most of the nurses around them are expecting.

One patient insisted on touching her belly the night before, she says. Garrow adds that their non-pregnant colleagues have been great at helping with patients they should not be exposed to because of conditions or treatments that are potentially dangerous for expectant women, such as tuberculosis or shingles or chemotherapy. But Ashley Adkins worries that the other nurses are getting tired of their pregnancy-focused conversations. "They just roll their eyes!" she laughs. "More baby talk!" Hospital officials note that the Banner medical center chain has a pool of floating nurses that should ensure shifts are covered when their ICU nursing specialists begin taking their 12-week maternity leaves starting in the fall.

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