11/11 Lucky Day for Area Hospitals

Hospitals report several births and scheduled C-sections on rare numerical day.

At least one Bay Area baby entered the world Friday at the stroke of 11:11 a.m. on Nov. 11, 2011.

A baby girl with the distinctive birth date arrived at Kaiser Permanente's San Jose Medical Center Friday morning in a natural birth, said hospital spokesman Karl Sonkin.
      
The mother, Tanya Reyes, and the father, are "absolutely over the moon" and everyone is doing well, Sonkin said.
      
Elsewhere in the Bay Area, San Jose's Good Samaritan Hospital reported that instead of the roughly three births that would be scheduled on a typical Friday, nearly a dozen inductions or c-sections were scheduled for Friday.

Labor and delivery staff are wearing "Birthquake" t-shirts -- sales of which will support the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit -- and will be enjoying cupcakes in honor the occasion, said hospital spokeswoman Leslie Kelsay.
      
"This spike isn't a tsunami, but it will definitely be a high-volume day for us," said Jane Parker, the hospital's vice-president of women's and children's services.

The scheduled births are those that needed to take place this week for medical reasons, but for various reasons parents chose to schedule for Friday rather than earlier in the week, Kelsay said. Births aren't scheduled before 39 weeks unless a doctor deems it necessary.

In addition, Good Samaritan Hospital will accommodate an expected 6 or 7 unscheduled deliveries. Kelsay said hospital legends suggest that births tend to spike around full moons and bad weather, both of which are in effect this week, but clinical studies of those effects have shown mixed
results at best.

At Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, several mothers were poised to deliver this morning but the closest newborn just missed the mark, arriving at 11:12 a.m., said hospital spokeswoman Carolyn Kemp.
   
Kemp said the hospital was not seeing any more births Friday than usual, scheduled or unscheduled, but that many parents seemed excited about the 11/11/11 birthday.

"Some of them are very into the numerology of it, saying it's a lucky day to have a baby, and others are saying they were just really lucky to have a baby," Kemp said.

Kemp noted that while today's date is significant, what might be even more significant is a date almost exactly nine months ago -- Valentine's Day.

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