Happy New Year, plus one, Gianna Conklin

WARWICK - It’s only happened twice in the past six years that no babies were born at St. Anthony Community Hospital on New Year’s Day. So when Gianna Makenzie arrived at 8:40 a.m. on Jan. 2, her parents, John and Robin Conklin of Newburgh, were surprised to learn that their 8 lb. 1 oz. daughter had the honor of being the first baby born at the hospital’s Kennedy Birthing Center in 2007. Dr. Stanislaw T. Landau of Community OB/GYN Associates, was the attending physician. The modern Kennedy Birthing Center, however, was not a new experience for the Conklins. The Conklins’ first daughter, Madison, was born May 11, 2005, in the very same birthing suite as her new baby sister. “I remembered the number on the door,” said John Conklin, who is Village of Walden Police officer. “I can’t say enough about the Kennedy Birthing Center,” added Robin Conklin, a fourth-grade teacher at Circleville Elementary School. “I’ve already recommended it to six of my friends.” More than 600 babies are born each year at St. Anthony Community Hospital. The Kennedy Birthing Center is a state-of-the-art maternity unit that combines technology with a comfortable atmosphere. It was built to provide homelike surroundings for a more natural labor, delivery and recovery in the same birthing suite. The unit also has a C-section suite, a nursery and several gynecological rooms. For more information, visit the hospital’s Web site at www.StAnthonyCommunityHosp.org.