Long Island’s first baby of 2016 is born at stroke of 12 a.m.
![Daniella Malakov of Forest Hills with her newborn baby boy,...](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.newsday.com%2Fimage-service%2Fversion%2Fc%3AYTJlOTc3ODEtNTJkZC00%3AODEtNTJkZC00NmVkZmM4%2Flibaby02_web.jpg%3Ff%3DLandscape%2B16%253A9%26w%3D770%26q%3D1&w=1920&q=80)
Daniella Malakov of Forest Hills with her newborn baby boy, born at the stroke of 12 a.m. Jan. 1, 2016, at Long Island Jewish Medical Center. Credit: Long Island Jewish Medical Center
Long Island welcomed a bumper crop of babies beginning just seconds after the start of the New Year.
But the region’s first baby of 2016 — and likely the first in New York State, according to hospital officials — was born at the stroke of midnight at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, which straddles the Queens-Nassau border.
The 7-pound, 4-ounce, 21-inch-long green-eyed boy, born to Daniella and Eli Malakov of Forest Hills, Queens, will be named at a bris next week.
Officials said he was the first 12 a.m. New Year’s baby for the health system in decades.
Daniella Malakov, 26, a dental hygiene student who managed to get an hour of sleep before a midday news conference, said her hopes for her son were simple: “that he stays healthy, and I hope that he can get along with his sister.”
That would be the Malakovs’ 2 1⁄2-year-old daughter, Hodaya, who had this to say when her mother told her she had a baby brother: “No.”
With a crowded field of contenders for first baby of 2016, officials with Northwell Health, formerly North Shore-LIJ Health System, offered proof of primacy, releasing a screenshot from an in utero fetal monitor tracking device that showed the birth exactly at 12 a.m.
Pat Garofalo, a labor and delivery nurse at the hospital, said the timing shocked staff members.
“I’ve been doing this 28 years, and I haven’t seen it,” she said.
Other New Year’s babies included an 8-pound, 9-ounce boy born two seconds after midnight at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset to Emanuela and Sean Shahverei of Great Neck. He is also unnamed as of yet for religious purposes.
Back at LIJ at 31 seconds after midnight, Vanessa and Joseph Sparacio, of Franklin Square, welcomed their son Austin into the world. Austin weighed 7 pounds, 4 ounces and was 19 inches long.
In Suffolk County, Angelina Rosalie Fonsetto was born at 12:02 a.m. at Stony Brook University Hospital to Linda Frangipane and Peter Fonsetto of Sound Beach. Angelina weighed 6 pounds, 11 ounces and was 19 1⁄2 inches long.
The Sparacio family will be featured in a new advertising campaign for Northwell Health this week, but Joseph, 37, a sanitation worker for Nassau County, said what he termed the “glam” was the farthest thing from his mind Thursday night: “I was a little anxious, nervous for her, for him,” he said, pointing to his wife and newborn son.
Northwell Health officials said the ad featuring Austin’s birth was “shot in real time” — one of 42,000 expected at the system’s hospitals this year.
Fans of baseball and surrealism take note: That many babies, officials noted, would almost fill the stands at Citi Field.