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Craven County's first born in 2022: Havelock mother gives birth to healthy baby girl

Sun Journal - 1/4/2022

Jan. 4—A mother from Havelock gave birth to the first baby born in Craven County in 2022 early Saturday morning. The mother and baby are happy and healthy heading into the new year.

Kaitlyn from Havelock gave birth to her second child, a baby girl named Jolena Sylvia Leilani at 3:08 a.m. Baby Jolena weighed 8 pounds, 15 ounces. The mother asked to respect the privacy of her daughter and declined to give a last name for herself and her newborn.

In total, CarolinaEast helped welcome four New Year's Day babies into Craven.

The county's first baby's original due date was Dec. 25. When asked if she was excited to have a Christmas baby, Kaitlyn explained she was hoping Jolena didn't come that day so that she could celebrate with her 4-year-old son.

"I wanted to spend Christmas day with him and didn't want to be in the hospital," said Kaitlyn. "Of course, I wanted to have her but I didn't want to take away from him. We had a great Christmas."

To celebrate the birth of her daughter, Kaitlyn named part of her daughter's name after her grandmother, Sylvia. The rest of Jolena's name came from having a similar name to her son.

The thought of having a New Year's baby did not strike her until after Jolena was born. Having a healthy baby was all that mattered.

"Hey, it's 2022. I've got a new baby, it's a new year and, hopefully, it will be a good year," added Kaitlyn. "She's got 10 toes, 10 fingers, and a full head of hair."

Craven's first New Year's baby came two days before the hospital reinstated its visitor restrictions due to the increasing concerns of the Omicron variant and the hospital's patient occupancy.

Hospitalization rates with CarolinaEast were listed at 68% patient occupancy and 67% of ICU patient occupancy in early December. The week of Dec. 17, that number increased to 70.2% usage of inpatient beds and 81.7% usage of ICU beds, according to a U.S. Department of Health & Human Services database.

Effective Monday, CarolinaEast will limit one visitor at a time during visitor hours. In March 2020, CarolinaEast restricted all patient visitation upon the recommendations of state and federal officials to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Visiting hours for inpatient units are 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. for all units except Crossroads Adult Mental Health, where visiting hours are 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

As the situation improved, increased visitation was introduced in various stages. Now, with the growing spread of COVID-19 in the community, as well as increased COVID-related hospitalizations at CarolinaEast, it is necessary to again limit visitation to help prevent the further spread of the virus, according to a news release from the hospital.

Under certain circumstances, such as end-of-life situations, compassionate care visitation may be implemented in coordination with a patient's physician or other care providers.

For expecting parents, the mother is considered the patient and is allowed a visitor to be there for the birth of the child and during the mother and child's stay at the hospital.

"It can be the father or anyone else as long as they are 16-years-old or older," said Chelsea Robinson, public relations specialist. "They are also welcome to switch out visitors. For example, the father can be the visitor one day, and then he can leave and switch places with a grandmother."

Reporter Trevor Dunnell can be reached by email at tdunnell@newbernsj.com. Please consider supporting local journalism by signing up for a digital subscription.

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