TEXAS SEES SURGE IN NUMBER OF NEWBORNS

Every three minutes, a child is born somewhere in Texas.

At one hospital in North Texas, 107 babies were delivered over 96 hours this summer, shattering local records. At a hospital in San Antonio, more than 1,200 babies have been born this year, up nearly 30 percent since 2018.

Across one of the nation’s fastest-growing states, an average 1,000 new Texans arrive every day. Half of them are newborns.

“Our population is going up. So just with that, I would expect our birthrates to increase,” said Shad Deering, a department chair with the Children’s Hospital of San Antonio. “We will become very busy.”

Stefanie Garcia-DeLeon was eager to hear her newborn when the machines she was connected to signaled something was not right. More than a dozen men and women in scrubs rushed into her room.

But nine minutes later, all worry evaporated. Garcia-DeLeon pushed, and a little girl let out a hearty cry. The room erupted in cheers and laughter.

Ten minutes later, Serafina’s little eyes scanned her mother’s face and all of the hospital equipment around her. “She’s so small, but already she has a big curiosity,” Garcia-DeLeon said.

Across the state, a baby boom has been fueled by newcomers from states like California and New York, attracted by a lower cost of living, less crowded schools and cheaper taxes. Many of them are starting their own families in the process, experts said.

“We have a higher proportion of population in the reproductive years,” said Lloyd Potter, a state demographer and professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Between 2010 and 2020, the state’s population grew by 4 million — or the entire population of neighboring Oklahoma. Babies made up the largest number of new arrivals to Texas (about 48 percent), with migrants from other states (31 percent) and countries (21 percent) rounding out the rest.

And hospitals are trying to keep up.

“It has not slowed down,” said Michelle Stemley, vice president of patient care at Baylor Scott & White All Saints Medical Center in Fort Worth, which broke its four-day delivery record this summer.

The surge in births comes amid a declining birthrate nationwide.