Last year, the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) recorded the highest number of babies delivered in a calendar year.
From Jan. 1, 2024, to Dec. 31, 2024, a total of 6,452 babies were delivered. That number beats the previous record, 6,139 in 2022, by five per cent.
“I think we are really fortune to be one of the families out of the thousands that made the milestone for LHSC, knowing that our story has a lot of curves and different paths,” said Emily Spooner, who’s daughter Ivy is among the record setting newborns from 2024.
Having experienced the heartbreaking loss of their first-born Beau at birth, parents Emily and Austin Spooner welcomed Ivy a year later, on March 26 – nine weeks earlier than expected.
Ivy spent a month in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), where she received highly specialized care for the first 30 days of her life.
“Really lucky and fortunate to have had the team that we did with Ivy in the NICU, they instilled a lot of confidence in Austin and I as new parents,” said Emily.
Of the newborns last year, just over 1,000 of them needed support from the NICU.
LHSC attributes the record to London’s population growth.
“It’s been a busy year, we’ve been having a lot of fun,” said Dr. Tracey Crumley, department head of Obstetrics and Gynecology at LHSC.
Among the newborns, there were 135 sets of twins and six sets of triplets. LHSC said there was an average of 17 babies born each day. Fridays were the busiest day of the week and July the busiest month of the year.
“The success of the unit is absolutely on the entire team. We have an incredible team of nurses, the family practice, midwives, obstetricians, everybody working together to have that patient flow through and to have everybody have such good outcomes,” explained Dr. Crumley.
Ivy is a perfect example of those good outcomes. The almost 1 year old is standing on her own, has five teeth, and didn’t shed a single tear during our interview.
