Eleven registered nurses working the emergency department at Piedmont Columbus Regional Northside are expecting babies, turning one Georgia hospital floor into an unexpected nursery-in-waiting. Two of the babies have already arrived, and nine more are due in the coming months, all from nurses who spend their shifts treating other people's emergencies.
The wave of pregnancies among the emergency room staff was first reported by WSB-TV, which identified the group of expecting nurses as Ema Patrick, Madison Peloquin, Hannah Turner, Sydney Smith, Laura Mason, Jazaria Haywood, Kori Crouch, Rachel Bedgood, and Shelby Granberry Cook. Patrick has already welcomed a baby boy named Stoic, and Crouch has delivered a baby girl named Adelynn, according to the station's report. The rest of the group is still counting down the weeks.
Piedmont Columbus Regional reported that two babies have already been born to the group, per the hospital, with nine more expected in the months ahead. The nurses have reportedly been comparing baby names and swapping notes on nurseries as their due dates approach, and the team celebrated the milestone together with a combined baby shower held at the hospital, the same report notes.
A Department Built for Round-the-Clock Emergencies
The emergency department team at Piedmont Columbus Regional Northside provides around-the-clock emergency care to the community, work that continues uninterrupted even as so many of its nurses prepare for maternity leave. The unit itself operates 20 treatment beds, having doubled its capacity during a 4,125-square-foot expansion completed in February 2022, according to reporting tied to the project cited by the Ledger-Enquirer.
Northside was originally known as Northside Medical Center before it was acquired by Atlanta-based Piedmont Healthcare on March 1, 2018, per historical hospital records. Piedmont Healthcare is now Georgia's largest health system, with 26 acute care hospitals, 75 urgent care centers, and more than 1,800 physician practice locations statewide as of 2026, according to Piedmont Healthcare.
Specialized Maternity Care Sits at a Sister Campus
While the expecting nurses work at Northside, obstetrical and neonatal emergency services for the Columbus market are concentrated elsewhere in the system. Piedmont's Midtown Campus operates a dedicated 24/7 OB Emergency Room along with a Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and Northside staff coordinate with Midtown for high-risk deliveries and neonatal care, according to Piedmont Healthcare.
The concentration of pregnancies among Northside's ER nurses is unusual, but it also reflects a broader pattern across the nursing profession. Roughly 88% to 89% of registered nurses nationwide are female, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, making nursing one of the most female-dominated professions in the country. General medical and surgical hospitals alone employ nearly 60% of all registered nurses in the United States, per federal labor data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, meaning clusters of concurrent pregnancies within a single department, while striking, aren't without precedent in hospital settings nationwide.
A Team Already Known for Pulling Together
This isn't the first time Northside's emergency room staff has drawn attention for camaraderie under pressure. Off-duty ER nurses previously stepped in to provide triage and medical assistance after a vehicle crashed into a nearby restaurant in North Columbus, an act that earned the team clinical recognition from the DAISY Foundation in 2024.
How the department manages staffing as nine more nurses head out on leave in the coming months remains an open question, since Georgia's paid parental leave law under House Bill 1010 currently applies to state employees and public school workers rather than private-sector healthcare staff, who are instead covered primarily by unpaid federal FMLA protections, according to Gusto. For now, patients at Northside appear to be well served: federal monitoring data from August 2026 shows 80% of surveyed patients at the hospital reported that nurses communicated well with them, matching the national benchmark and edging out Georgia's statewide average of 79%, per Medicare.gov.
Whatever the scheduling challenges ahead, the nine remaining nurses are focused for now on nurseries and name lists rather than shift charts. For a department used to handling other people's worst days, the coming months promise a very different kind of full house.
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