Eleven years ago when she gave birth to her sec­ond child, Ca­paro moth­er Rox­anne Ri­ley-Web­ster thought that her fam­i­ly was com­plet­ed. Ri­ley-Web­ster was gift­ed with the first ba­by to be born at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal on New Year's Day.

At 8 lbs 2 ounces, Re­bec­ca Web­ster's cry at 12.09 am was her first song to the world, kick­ing off four births at hos­pi­tal by noon. De­spite her ex­pe­ri­ence in child­birth, Ri­ley-Web­ster said labour was still hard and she was just hap­py that it was over and her daugh­ter safe. She said it was an ex­cit­ing time for her fam­i­ly.

Shar­da Per­sad, who had Kabeer Mo­hammed 40 min­utes lat­er, said she was re­lieved that it was over af­ter spend­ing 24 hours in labour. Kabeer, Per­sad’s fifth child, came out at 5 lbs, 7 ounces and was 13 days ear­li­er than ex­pect­ed but safe and healthy. Per­sad said doc­tors had to in­duce labour be­cause of low am­ni­ot­ic flu­id. While Kabeer slept peace­ful­ly in his cot, Per­sad said she was tired and was un­able to rest as she had been placed on a re­clin­er since giv­ing birth. The moth­ers were all pre­sent­ed with gifts from the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty.

Mean­while, there were two births at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal on the first day of 2019 and they were both boys. The first ba­by was born to Juani­ta Gumbs and Dwayne Nicholls of Mil­ford Road, Bon Ac­cord, at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1:41 am Juani­ta is an En­rolled Nurs­ing As­sis­tant at­tached to the Geri­atric Unit of the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (TRHA) and Dwayne is a fish­er­man. Their ba­by weighed in at 7.35 lbs.

 When of­fi­cials of the TRHA vis­it­ed the Ma­ter­ni­ty Ward of the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (SGH), Juani­ta was ex­cit­ed at the birth of her third boy, whose broth­ers are ten and five. She had some ad­vice for oth­er moth­ers.

"Aim for the stars. Do what you have to do. Life might be tough but you have to do what you have to do. Make sure you're ed­u­cat­ed," said Gumbs who had tremen­dous praise for the doc­tors and nurs­es at the SGH.

The sec­ond ba­by weighed 6.07 lbs and was born at 7:23 am to Stacey, a house­wife, and Neil McLetchie, a teacher at Hope AC Pri­ma­ry School. The McLetchie's re­side at Buc­coo New Road, Buc­coo and are cel­e­brat­ing the birth of their fourth boy, the oth­ers aged 15, 12 and 8. McLetchie, 40, was ec­sta­t­ic and laud­ed the doc­tors and nurs­es at the SGH.

"I'm hap­py. I'm hap­py. My hus­band knew it was an­oth­er boy be­cause he told me that from be­fore. Every­body was telling me it was a girl but I had a feel­ing that it was an­oth­er boy. I went through a lot of pain but once he came out safe, I'm hap­py. Thank God."