By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
@Ebay.
KwaZulu-Natal has thus far welcomed 63 babies born on the first day of 2025, MEC for Health, Nomagugu Simelane said.
The first New Year’s Day baby born in KZN, was a baby boy who was delivered at Hlabisa Hospital at 0.05am. There was another baby boy who was born at 0.07am. The birth weight of these two babies is 3.2kg and 2.7kg, respectively.
So far, at Prince Mshiyeni Memorial Hospital, four New Year babies have been born including three girls and one boy, while St Mary’s Hospital, in Marriannhill welcomed seven New Year babies, Harry Gwala Regional Hospital had six New Year babies; and Newcastle Hospital had five New Year babies.·
“To these newborns and their families, we offer our heartfelt congratulations. The birth of a child is a moment of great joy and responsibility,” Simelane said.
The MEC said that they are committed to ensuring that the babies get the best start in life, including: early birth registration to secure their legal identities and the facilitating of registration for the child support grant for qualifying families.
Gauteng
Gauteng MEC for Health and Wellness, Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko joined mothers at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital to celebrate the arrival of their newly born babies.
“We have 13 babies that we have received on this day. We had a baby that was born at twelve midnight.”
“But what I don’t like, because I am a woman, is that there are nine boys,” she said to laughter, ” So, I am not happy about that because I thought I would have more girls and have fewer boys. I’m biased towards girls,” Nkomo-Ralehoko said.
Nkomo-Ralehoko also shared the nationalities of the babies.
“One is Mozambican. The rest of the thirteen, which is twelve, are South African children.
“Can you see the improvement in terms of our stats because of eHealth that we’ve introduced. We are no longer thumb-sucking the numbers. We know this child is a South African,” Nkomo-Ralehoko said.
Eastern Cape
MEC of Health in the Eastern Cape, Ntandokazi Capa, welcomed at least 43 babies and said one of the mothers who gave birth on New Year’s Day is 12 years old.
“This is quite shocking. As a department, we’ll follow up and interact with our MEC for social development at Frontier Hospital so we know who the father is.
“You can’t have a 12-year-old having a child, it’s just not acceptable,” Capa said.
Capa has called on parents to look after their children and play a role in avoiding teenage pregnancies.
Last week, the Department of Health announced that over 1 360 babies were safely delivered at public health facilities across the country on Christmas Day.
This figure represents approximately 300 fewer births than the 1 708 babies delivered in 2023 and about 50 fewer than the 1 414 babies born in 2022.