Denver — Nine months after a blizzard brought life to a near-standstill in Denver and much of eastern Colorado, some doctors and hospitals say they’re seeing one more bit of fallout: lots of babies.
“We are seeing in our practice a 20 percent bump in October,” said obstetrician Steve Grover, who delivers babies in Lone Tree south of Denver.
Exempla Good Samaritan Medical Center in Lafayette, north of Denver, said its maternity ward has been busy.
“Apparently, not everybody was shoveling snow,” said David Hamm, chief executive officer of Exempla Good Samaritan.
Avista Adventist Hospital in Louisville, also north of Denver, printed up blizzard-baby T-shirts for newborns. Ricky Lee Romero, born Tuesday, has one.
His dad, Randy Romero, said he had come home after a long shift as a Denver snowplow mechanic to find his partner, Dayna Wilson, had made dinner and put her two daughters to bed.
“We just cuddled up to get warm, and this happened,” Romero said.
It’s not yet clear if Colorado really is in the midst of a blizzard baby boom. No firm numbers were available, and at least one hospital, Boulder Community, said it’s on pace for a normal month.
Purported booms from some past calamities have been debunked.
Researchers from the University of North Carolina and Duke University showed there were no booms after a November 1965 blackout in New York City and eight New England states, or a July 1977 blackout in New York City.
