Hospital bracing for a baby boom
History says that might not happen
Geisinger Community Medical Center is preparing for an uptick in births starting nine months after Pennsylvania issued statewide shutdown orders in March to stop the spread of COVID-19, but at least one study says there might not be an increase.
“I think the reality is that we’re looking at a different world right now,” said Dr. J. Manuel Arreguin, chief of obstetrics and gynecology in Geisinger’s northeast region.
Geisinger is bracing for an increase after looking at staffing and monthly percentages of births, said Arreguin, who oversees all women’s health and operations at Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton and Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center in Plains Township.
But Arreguin also referenced a July study released by the Brookings Institution that predicted a nationwide decrease in births by 30,000-50,000. The study looks at birth rates after the Great Recession in 2008 and the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918, he noted.
Compiled by Melissa S. Kearney, nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor in the economics department at the University of Maryland, and Phillip B. Levine, an economics professor at Wellesley College, the study predicts birth rates will tumble because the COVID-19 pandemic is “leading to tremendous economic loss, uncertainty and insecurity.”
“When the public health crisis first took hold, some people playfully speculated that there would be a spike in births in nine months, as people were ‘stuck home’ with their romantic partners. Such speculation is based on persistent myths about birth spikes occurring nine months after blizzards or major electricity blackouts,” according to the study by the nonprofit public policy organization. “As it turns out, those stories tend not to hold up to statistical examination.”
Arreguin noted that the number of people seeking treatment for sexually transmitted diseases has been on the rise nationwide since the pandemic begin.
“I don’t want to say fertility rates are equal but it is interesting,” he said.
Women have also inundated the health system to make sure they have enough birth control pills, he said.
“Most people are largely still afraid of becoming pregnant during this pandemic,” Arreguin said. “I think that’s because there’s so much out there, so much information that really dissuades the stable family from saying this is the right time to have children.”
Geisinger Community Medical Center, which celebrated the first anniversary of its new labor and delivery unit Oct. 11, has delivered more than 455 babies in the facility in the past year.
Wayne Memorial Hospital is preparing to deliver the same number of babies as in past Decembers, spokesperson Lisa Champeau said.
“I wish I could say that we anticipate a boom,” she said.