Seventeen nurses working in the labor and delivery unit at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton are expecting babies at the same time, hospital officials said this week, marking the largest such cluster the unit has seen.
The nurses, employed by Premier Health, range across various stages of pregnancy, with due dates stretching from June through December. The previous high for the unit was 11 nurses pregnant simultaneously, a record set in 2019, according to a hospital release.
Unit nurse manager Amberly Saner said staff gradually became aware of the growing number of pregnancies among colleagues over a period of months. “We kind of found out over a period of a couple of months how many people were pregnant and it just kept growing and growing,” she said.
Several of the nurses are first-time mothers, while others are expecting their second or subsequent children. Nurses interviewed said the shared experience has strengthened bonds within the unit, with some colleagues planning to deliver each other’s babies given their roles on the maternity staff.
Hospital administrators said they do not anticipate the wave of upcoming maternity leaves will disrupt patient care. The unit employs close to 200 nurses and support staff, with additional part-time and per-diem personnel available to cover shifts during the staffing transition.
The Dayton hospital’s situation echoes similar clusters reported at other U.S. healthcare facilities in recent years, including a group of 11 nurses at OhioHealth Grant Medical Center in Columbus and eight nurses at a Maine hospital in 2019, underscoring a recurring, if statistically unusual, trend among close-knit medical teams.
