Births soar at hospital

The Daily Inter Lake

Romance apparently ran rampant last June, making a record number of babies - 92 - born in March at Kalispell Regional Medical Center.

That breaks Kalispell Regional's previous monthly high mark of 91 births in July 2002.

Kalispell Regional averages 65 to 70 births a month.

"Just all of a sudden, there's a spike," said Kelli Staats, the hospital's obstetrics supervisor.

There were 49 births in January and 53 in February. So far in April there have been 53 births at the hospital.

In March 2008 there were 58 births.

"Our staff was real busy … Babies are fun. It's fun seeing new life, seeing all the first-time parents," Staats said.

No obvious factor exists to explain the sudden spike in births, said Mindy Fuzesy, Kalispell Regional's obstetrics manager.

Historically, birth rates tend to decrease in economically poor times and increase in good financial times, she said.

In Whitefish, North Valley Hospital is going through a birth surge this month - 41 so far in April with 50 expected.

In the past year, North Valley has averaged 40 births a month.

North Valley averaged about 200 births annually until it moved to its new location two years ago. That number increased to 485 from March 2008 to March 2009.