JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Baby boom or bust? Women's Care Florida is seeing a rise in births since 2019, but when you take a look at the bigger picture, it doesn't equate to a boom.
Data shows numbers are either equal or declining compared to 2019 births. See your county's data here.
So why did it feel like everyone is having babies these past two years? Perhaps we were all looking for some good news.
“Hi! You going to smile at mommy?" says mom Jade Fay as she looks down at her 2-month-old Hudson.
If the pandemic is a two-year-long tunnel we are still crawling through, Fay says the light at the end is Hudson.
"I think for the longest time we were kind of down a lot," Fay said. "Whenever he was born, it was like a light came into our lives. It was very refreshing."
He's a pandemic baby.
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“My husband was home a lot during the pandemic, so we were kind of like, oh it would be fun to have another little one," she said.
It wasn’t easy. She juggled fears of getting COVID-19 and going to doctor’s appointments alone.
She’s one of 2,265 women in St. Johns County this year who created one of these. In Duval, there were more than 12,000 births in 2021 (provisional data).
“Look at your little hands," she muses.
“I guess if you’re home," implies Dr. AJ with Women's Care Florida.
If your business is babies, then it doesn’t take a baby boom for business to be booming. OBGYN AJ says one of the biggest changes was the limited visitors.
“There is always that special moment whether there is one or 10 people in the room," he said. "So I think that joy is still there.”
AJ says Women's Care is seeing a 22% rise in pregnancy since 2019. He understands there are different struggles for these moms than moms who gave birth before the pandemic.
“We don’t get much sleep these days," said Fay, "but we wouldn’t want to have it any other way.”
Hudson recently had his first trip out of his house. Fay took him with her on a Target trip.
She's also the mother of a 2-year-old. Both her kids have spent most of their life in the pandemic.