Local hospitals welcome first babies of 2012

South Nassau Communities Hospital
At just 12:04 a.m., South Nassau Communities Hospital welcomed its first baby of 2012 into the world. Isabela Garcia-Hernandez was born on Jan. 1, just minutes after the ball dropped in Times Square. She weighed nine pounds. Isabela is pictured here with her mother, Lilliam Garcia-Hernandez, and the maternity staff, along with Lynn Bert, RN, nurse manager of pediatrics at South Nassau.

Mercy Medical Center
An 8-pound, 12-ounce boy has the distinction of being the first baby born at Mercy Medical Center in 2012.

Liam Thomas Gunther, delivered at 10:37 a.m. on Jan. 2, is the second child for 34-year-old Melissa Gunther and her 37-year-old husband Thomas. The Farmingdale couple have a daughter, Keira Marie, who will be three-years-old in April.

Liam will have plenty of company as a 2012 “Mercy Baby,” with more than 1,200 births expected at the hospital in the next 12 months. Some 300 of those babies will be premature or sick infants who receive care in the hospital’s Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

The parents of all of those newborns, as well as those of all babies born over the years at Mercy, have the opportunity to commemorate the care they and their infants received on the hospital’s  “Newborn Wall of Celebration”outside the NICU and newborn nursery.

The wall features a colorful rainbow motif, symbolizing hope, renewal and community, on which parents of babies born at Mercy over the past decades can place a small plaque with their child’s name and date of birth as a demonstration of gratitude for the work of the Mercy physicians, nurses and staff who nurtured and cared for them in their first days of life.

A project of the Council of Leagues of Mercy, proceeds from the wall will specifically benefit Mercy’s maternal child services.

Nassau University Medical Center

A baby boy was born at Nassau University Medical Center four seconds after midnight. On January 1, 2012, Danilo Alexander Mojica entered the world. Parents Alicia and Carlos Mojica, of Hicksville, called the baby a miracle and a blessing.

“We are so thrilled to welcome Danilo into our family after only a two hour labor,” the parents announced in a statement to NUMC. “We wanted a son for our second child and could not be more grateful to have a healthy baby boy.

Seven-year-old Gennesis was also at the hospital to meet her brother who weighed 7 pounds, 15 ounces and was 20 inches in length.

“We are still in shock to have delivered the first baby of the year 2012, but very pleasantly surprised and thankful for this blessing,” said the parents.