The former province boasts the higher number of New Year newborns out of the two, with 23 babies birthed into the world thus far. While, the North West health department spokesperson, Tebogo Lekgethwane, cautions that the complete New Year baby figures will only be released on Thursday morning, the number for the province so far is slightly higher than the number of babies born around the same time on Christmas Day. Seventeen of the babies born are males, while six are girls, a contrast to the Christmas Day figures, which at this stage indicated more girls had been born than boys.

Here are the North West figures, broken down by district: 

1. Bojanala District – 7 (4 boys and 3 girls)

2. Ngaka Modiri Molema – 3 (3 boys and 0 girls)

3. Dr Kenneth Kaunda District - 7 (4 boys and 3 girls)

4. Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati District - 6 (3 boys and 3 girls)

The North West Health MEC Madoda Sambatha, is on New Year’s Day visiting Tshepong Hospital in Klerksdorp where he is kicking off a series of visits from his department to different health facilities around the province to congratulate mothers on the births of their babies. 

The Free State on the other hand has welcomed at least nineteen babies. Provincial health Department spokesperson, Bonny Sehularo, says ten of the babies born in the province are female. According to Sehularo the first baby was born one minute after midnight at Pelonomi Hospital in Bloemfontein.  This baby was born 12 minutes before the first baby born in North West at Christiana District Hospital.

The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) estimates in total, 392,078 babies will be born around the world on New Year’s Day. Strides have been made in lowering the global maternal mortality rate – which is the number of deaths due to complications from childbirth or pregnancy. A unicef report on maternal deaths released in September 2019 reveals the global maternal mortality rate has declined by 38 percent between 2000 and 2017. South Africa’s own maternal mortality rate has also dropped by 26% in the same period from 160 to 119 deaths in the same period. The rate did shoot up between in 2005 to 201 deaths.

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