There's a baby boom coming to a hospital in Arizona, with 16 nurses preparing to give birth over the coming months.

The intensive care nurses work at Banner Desert Medical Center in Mesa, which is about 20 miles from Phoenix.

They are all expecting between October and January.

Nurse Rochelle Sherman, nearly eight months pregnant, said: "I don't think we realised just how many of us were pregnant until we started a Facebook group."

Her pregnant colleague Jolene Garrow joked: "We all formulated this plan to have the holidays off."

Image: The intensive care nurses work at Banner Desert Medical Center in Mesa, Arizona

Ms Garrow added that non-pregnant colleagues have been helping by taking care of patients whose illnesses or treatments could be dangerous to expecting mothers and unborn babies.

These include tuberculosis, shingles or chemotherapy because of the radiation.

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But Ashley Adkins said that the other nurses might be getting tired of pregnancy-focused conversations, saying: "They just roll their eyes: more baby talk."

Hospital officials have said that a group of floating nurses should be able to cover the workload while the 16 nurses start to take their 12 weeks of maternity leave.

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