Babies conceived at the very beginning of coronavirus lockdown measures in the Riverina are now being born, with one Wagga midwife predicting a pandemic baby boom in coming months.
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Last month was the busiest of 2020 as 118 babies were born in the Wagga Base Hospital through December, with 1287 babies born through the year.
Midwife Mavis Gaff-Smith, who has worked at the hospital for over 30 years, said she has been so busy she once walked nearly 14 kilometres during a recent night shift.
"We need a lot more midwives to do the job really, but we're very thankful at the end of the shift that we've got safe mothers and safe babies," she said.
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Dr Gaff-Smith said maternity wards often saw spikes through the year based on Christmas and Easter conceptions, along with more specific events like a sporting victory, or major events like the end of wars.
As 'COVID babies' begin to arrive, Dr Gaff-Smith said the midwives were hearing stories from women who had not necessarily seen a baby in the plan at the start of 2020.
"The women coming in told us they were actually conceived during the commencement of the lockdown period, we're not talking about first time mums that are having a baby, we're not talking about mothers that had two or three-year-old children that were planning a baby at some stage," she said.
"We're talking about mothers that had children that were virtually off their hands in the sense that they were going to school, seven, eight-year-olds and they thought ... 'oh well, we might as well have a baby'".
For Oura first time mother Sarah Bowen, a baby was always part of the plan in 2020 after her March wedding turned into an elopement last minute at the very beginning of lockdown.
Her and her partner found out she was pregnant a month later, with Billy Bowen born on Sunday night.
Mrs Bowen said they had been lucky through the process to be able to have limited visitors, with some recent mothers having to deal with more stringent coronavirus restrictions.
"Not being able to have my grandparents and only one (visitor) a day has been a bit hard, but it's also been good just to spend some time with your little family for a few days," she said.
"The experience in the hospital has been really good, the midwives have been amazing."
Dr Gaff Smith said she expected birth numbers to continue increasing in 2021.
"Since we moved into the hospital they've increased every year, and I expect even with this COVID situation we will have extra numbers and I would be surprised if we didn't have very high numbers by the end of the year overall," she said.
