New Boom in Babies Reflects Growth in Area

By Edgar Sanchez, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

Mar. 15–The baby boom generation began to take shape after World War II. Now, a new generation of baby boomers is arriving in some parts of the Sacramento region, according to newly released statistics.

During the past five years, the number of babies born at Sutter Memorial Hospital — the busiest maternity ward in California’s capital — rose 56 percent, with 5,819 births in 2006, Sutter officials said last week.

Another two hospitals in the Sutter Health Sacramento Sierra Region also showed significant increases in births during the same period, ranging from a 17.7 percent rise at Sutter Davis Hospital to 34 percent at Sutter Roseville Medical Center.

Kaiser Permanente also reported higher birth rates at its area facilities.

“It does appear we’re in another baby boom, of sorts,” Dr. William Gilbert, regional medical director of Sutter’s Women’s Services, said in a statement. “The number of babies we’ve delivered at Sutter Memorial Hospital is at an 11-year high.”

One key reason for the dramatic increase is the urban growth in the Sacramento area, a growth fueled partly by the ongoing exodus of Bay Area couples seeking affordable housing, said Todd Migliaccio, an assistant professor of sociology at California State University, Sacramento.

Other contributing factors include the arrival of new immigrants, along with out-of-state workers drawn to Sacramento by its government jobs, he said.

“The housing market has exploded,” Migliaccio said, noting that redeveloped neighborhoods, including some in West Sacramento and Sacramento, have twice as many residents today as they did a couple of decades ago.

Between 2001 and last year, Sacramento County’s population grew by about 10 percent, to 1.39 million, according to the state Department of Finance.

During the same period, Placer County’s population rose by nearly 22 percent, to 322,428, the Department of Finance said.

“Births at Sutter Memorial have far outpaced the rise in population over the past five years,” Gilbert said.

Combined births at Kaiser’s Sacramento and south Sacramento medical centers totaled 7,667 in 2006 — a 16.4 percent increase over 2001, Kaiser spokesman Jeff Hausman said.

During that same period, he noted, Kaiser Permanente experienced a strong membership growth in the capital region.

“In 2001, we provided health care services to approximately 579,000 local members, compared to nearly 659,000 today,” Hausman said in an e-mail. “That’s 80,000 more members, or a roughly 14 percent increase.”

Mercy Hospitals bucked the trend with a slight drop in births.

In 2005, the latest year for which statistics are available, 9,496 babies were born at six Mercy hospitals in greater Sacramento, Mercy officials said.

That was 45 fewer babies than were born in 2001 at Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento, Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Carmichael, Methodist Hospital in south Sacramento, Mercy Hospital of Folsom, Woodland Healthcare in Woodland and Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital, the officials said.

But no matter the hospital, statisticians have a task counting the new arrivals.

Doctors at Sutter Roseville Medical Center delivered 2,788 babies in 2006, up from 2,076 five years before. Sutter Davis Hospital had 1,335 births in 2006, vs. 1,134 in 2001.

Total births in the Sutter Health System, including a hospital in Auburn, rose 41 percent, from 7,433 in 2001 to 10,447 in 2006, Sutter officials said in a press release.

That more than half the births in the Sutter system occurred at Sutter Memorial Hospital last year wasn’t surprising.

Since it opened in 1937, the medical center at 51st and F streets has delivered more babies every day than any other area hospital — a total of more than 300,000 at last count.

Its most active year was 1993, when its doctors delivered 6,995 babies.

Known as “the baby hospital,” Sutter Memorial offers a variety of services for expectant mothers and their babies, including care provided by specialists in high-risk pregnancies.

“A lot of women like the security of having high-risk doctors and nurses if they need them,” said Gilbert, who heads Sutter’s high-risk pregnancy team.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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