Rafael Abitbul holds his son. (NYC Health + Hospitals/TNS)
(Tribune News Service) — When New York City’s first baby of 2024 entered the world at the stroke of midnight Monday morning, the newborn boy immediately took after his father: They were both delivered by the same doctor.
Yet Dr. Sherman Dunn of South Brooklyn Health in Coney Island wasn’t aware of the curious twist of fate at the time. It was only later that he’d learn he also delivered the baby’s father, Rafael Abitbol, 23 years earlier at the same facility back when it was known as Coney Island Hospital.
“He told me that his mother told him that I delivered him,” Dunn told the Daily News. “Even though the mother was here, she never approached me and told me that. He told me after the fact.”
The coincidence was overshadowed by the excitement over the birth. As the countdown to 2024 began, everyone in the delivery room, from doctors to nurses to the baby’s parents, were well aware the infant stood a strong chance of being the first birth of the new year in the city’s public hospital system.
“We had the TV on with the Times Square ball on, so everybody’s watching the ball coming down,” Dunn said. “They were doing the countdown on the TV as well as the mother pushing too.”
As the stroke of midnight, “the mother gave it all her might, and the baby’s head delivered,” Dunn said.
From left to right: Doctor Sherman Dunn, new dad Rafael Abitbul and nurse Anna Kolodynski. Dunn delivered Abitbul’s baby, the first for the NYC public hospital system in the new year, and later learned he had also delivered Abitbul himself, 23 years ago. (NYC Health + Hospitals/TNS)
“It was a lot of fun,” said third-year resident Betty Varghese. “There was a lot of energy and excitement in the delivery room, a lot of anticipation.”
It was the fifth year in a row South Brooklyn Health has brought forth the year’s first baby, according to NYC Health + Hospitals. The city’s public health system has 11 hospitals across the five boroughs.
Baby Abitbol, who weighed in at 7 pounds 13 ounces, and his mom were doing well on Monday, the hospital said.
In yet another coincidence, the nurse caring for the new family turned out to have worked for the father’s pediatrician.
“I took care of him and his siblings for about 20 years,” nurse Anna Kolobynski told the Daily News. “Now I am taking care of his child.”
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