January 1, 2024 – Split Mayor Blaženko Boban visited the local maternity hospital on Monday morning, where he presented the director of KBC Split, Juli Meštrović, and the head of the gynaecology department, Damir Roja, with gifts for the mother and twin baby girls. In an exceptional turn of events, one was born before and the other after midnight. Not expecting to say this ever again, the first 2024 baby in Croatia has a twin from 2023.
Head of the Institute for Perinatology, Prof. Dr. Damir Roje said that he had never had a case like this in his career, writes Večernji List. “There were twins who were born one before, the other after midnight, but never before on December 31. This birth will surely remain in the annals. When chronologies and monographs are written, will certainly be mentioned”, emphasized Roje.
He added that the twin girls are the happy couple’s first babies and confirmed that the mother and the twins are doing well. He quoted Gibonni’s song about two twin sisters born at midnight, one a little earlier, the other later. “It will be a cute situation for the happy family where they can celebrate one of their daughter’s birthday on New Year’s Eve, and the other on New Year’s Day. Nature records all kinds of situations, including this one. We are looking forward to everything unusual, which we of course find amazing and cheerful”, said Roje.
He presented information that last year in the Split maternity hospital, 3901 births were recorded and 4007 children were born. “It is, I think, the only maternity hospital in the Republic of Croatia that has more than 4,000 newborns. If we compare 2023 with the previous year, in 2023 there were some 2% fewer births in relation to the total number of births, which is at the level of statistical error. We have had this stable number of births for about 15 years”, emphasized Roje.
