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Birth of a boom
Valley hospitals are setting records for numbers of babies born.
By Tracy Correa / The Fresno Bee
09/27/07 23:44:32
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1.5%

Growth of births predicted this year in Fresno and Tulare counties, according to the California Department of Finance.

1.9%

Growth of births prediccted this year in Madera County.
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New home sales may have dipped recently, but effects of the Valley's housing boom are apparent in some local hospitals.

Many saw a surge in births in recent months, including record-setting numbers at Clovis Community Medical Center, Saint Agnes Medical Center and Madera Community Hospital.

Clovis hit a record with 350 births in August -- the first time it surpassed 300 in a single month and 31% more than August last year.

Saint Agnes had a record 386 births in August, and Madera had a record number of births in July with 193, topping its monthly average of 170 births.

The trend is reflected in statistics from the California Department of Health, which show births in Fresno County were mostly constant from June through October of 2006 but have been increasing since June of this year.

Dr. Stewart Mason, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Fresno, said the increase has been dramatic and has doctors and hospitals busier than ever.

"My practice has almost doubled in a year," he said. "We're noticing [more patients] in our office, in labor and delivery, in just sheer volume."

Mary Heim, chief of the demographic research unit at the California Department of Finance, said the sharp increase in births at some hospitals is likely linked to new housing development in the areas they serve.

This would include northeast Clovis, as well as Selma -- as home buyers migrate from Fresno to the affordable bedroom community -- and Madera.

"If it's an area where there's a lot of new development, younger people tend to move into those areas," Heim said.

Fresno mom Kasie Valdez said she noticed something was going on when she gave birth at Clovis Community.

When she checked in for a scheduled Caesarean section early in the morning Aug. 17, she and several other women had to wait in the lobby for beds to become available.

Valdez had given birth at the hospital before -- four years ago to son Palmer and more than a year ago to daughter Ava -- but this time was different. She said staff were running around and were being paged left and right.

Even so, the surgery that led to daughter Reece's birth was only delayed by about 30 minutes. "I have no complaints," she said.

She said she was in the hospital for three nights: "The babies just kept coming the whole time. They had something like 15 babies one day."

The surge built over several months at Clovis, which typically sees births rise in the summer. Several other hospitals also had busier-than-usual maternity wards.

Selma Community Hospital experienced a 60% increase in births in July compared with the same period last year.

Selma's sister hospital, Central Valley General in Hanford, saw only a slight increase in August births and a slight drop in July births.

This wasn't the case for Kaiser Permanente's Fresno Medical Center and Saint Agnes, which both saw the number of births rise substantially.

Kaiser saw a 31% increase in August compared with the same month last year.

Saint Agnes saw a nearly 21% increase from August 2006 and a 10% increase from July to August this year.

Mason, the OB-GYN, said Saint Agnes is on track to have a record number of births this year.

The California Department of Finance projects births in Fresno and Tulare counties will grow by 1.5% this year from 2006. Madera County's births are projected to grow 1.9%. But hospital representatives say the number of babies they are delivering is exceeding predictions.

Mason said hospitals also are feeling the pinch because the number of maternity beds hasn't kept pace with demand. While there are plans to add more labor and delivery beds, including at Clovis Community, the beds won't be added for a few years.

Not every hospital followed the upward trend. Births at Community Regional Medical Center in downtown Fresno dipped between July and August this year. Data for 2006 were not available.

And Kaweah Delta Hospital in Visalia saw a dip of about 3% in August births this year compared with last. It also saw a July-to-August drop this year of about 5%.
The reporter can be reached at tcorrea@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6378.

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