While in previous years many parents have aimed to have their children born on New Year’s Day, with some even opting for a caesarean section at the most auspicious time, Taipei City Hospital yesterday said it had delivered only one baby yesterday morning, with no other planned deliveries for the rest of the day.
A boy was born naturally at the hospital’s Heping Fuyou Branch at about 4am, it said, adding that as of 5pm, he was the only baby born on New Year’s Day at the hospital’s branches.
The boy’s estimated due date was Jan. 11, but his mother felt contractions at about 1am, shortly after watching a New Year’s fireworks display on TV at home, and hurried to the hospital, where the baby was delivered naturally.
A total of 11 babies were born at the hospital’s five branches on New Year’s Day in 2015, while four were born last year, it said, adding that the number was likely to drop even lower this year.
“The trend of intentionally giving birth on New Year’s Day is fading, with the number of caesarean sections scheduled on the day dropping even more,” Heping Fuyou Branch Gynecology and Obstetrics Department director Lin Shih-chi (林世基) said.
While some parents used to choose the best time for birth by caesarean section on New Year’s Day, the majority of parents now opt for natural deliveries, he said.
The recovery period is shorter for a natural birth, and mothers can usually walk or feed their babies two or three hours after delivery, Lin said, adding that mothers who undergo a caesarean section are more likely to experience pain from the surgical incision and need longer to recover.
As of noon yesterday, a total of 16 New Year’s Day babies were delivered at Taipei’s Cathay General Hospital, Mackay Memorial Hospital and Taiwan Adventist Hospital, with the majority being natural births.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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