First Baby of 2025 Welcomed at KHMH, Receives New Year’s Honors

A six-pound baby boy was the first to be delivered at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital (KHMH) for the New Year.  The honoring of the firstborn has become a tradition as several stores, primarily Santiago Castillo Limited would present gift baskets to the newborn and the parents.  Although this year’s baby boy is yet to be named, we can tell you that he was born at 12:15 am to 19-year-old Glenda Pop of Hattieville, Belize District.  According to Estella Flowers, Unit Manager of the Maternity Ward, the baby came two days early.

Estella Flowers, Maternity Ward Unit Manager, Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital: “We were expecting like majority of the time on the 31st we usually have like four or five people to come in to deliver on the 1st but Ms. Glenda Pop she was the first one that came in on the 31st of December at 8 p.m. with eight centimeter and when she delivered was 12:15 am on the 1st right so when 12 o’clock came right she was fully dilated and ready to push and she pushed you know she delivered a healthy male neonate at 12:15 am right weighing six pound three ounces and the nurses that delivered her was nurse Elamin and Nurse Ortiz along with an intern Dr. Fernandez. These are normal deliveries, right? So normal delivery is expected at any time, right? From the time you reach term permanency, any time a mother is pregnant and reach term permanency, having pain, they could walk in unexpectedly. So we were expecting three to four mothers but she was the only one. And still only the only one. We just had a delivery yesterday on the second. So she was the only one for 24 hours.”

Aisha Trapp, Marketing Manager for San Cas Limited, said that the items in the care package include diapers, wipes, and self-care products for the mother. Keeping with hospital policy which promotes exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months, San Cas did not deliver any milk substitutes.

Aisha Trapp, Marketing Manager, San Cas Limited: “We’ve been doing this for 20 plus years and even before I’ve been with SanCas. So we couldn’t start the new year, of course, without having blessed the babies. I have to say babies, guys, because we don’t only give the baby born at KHMH but we do give babies from all different public hospitals. We’ve checked, and so far, San Ignacio had a baby boy. He was born 12:02 a.m. And Dangriga had three. They had two females and one male. The first female was born at 9:02 a.m. So we continue to check and see if any other babies were born. We did check also the private hospitals because we do give all the babies that were born for the new year a package. The items are selected based on the policies from the hospital. Putting breastfeeding first, of course, we don’t give any milk substitute in the package. We give Ovaltine which helps with the production of breast milk. We also give Seven Seas Vitamins. We give, of course, Huggies diapers and wipes and we give Jergens products, which of course adds to self-care for the mom. We know that after having a newborn, it’s very tough on the mom. So we do give products for the mom and baby, Cotex of course for mommy. So we’ve added a little every year based on the policy of the hospital and we do check with them before we give the packages.”

Care packages were also given out to other mothers at other public health facilities who delivered on New Year’s Day