ON A night where most were celebrating the arrival of the new year, a few parents were celebrating the arrive of a new family member.

Across the county, mums and dads were welcoming new babies into the world on the first day of 2019.

Between two maternity hospitals – Princess Anne in Southampton and the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester – a total of ten new babies were welcomed into 2019.

At the Princess Anne, eight babies were born yesterday, the first of which arrived at 12.39am, making him the first baby to be born in Southampton, as well as the region, this year.

Mother-of-two Stephanie Baxter, from Lymington, explained that her baby boy did not yet have a name, but would have one soon.

When speaking about having Southampton’s first baby this year, the 35-year-old said: “It is really lovely. It’s very nice and quite exciting.”

Rachel Harris, a midwife at the hospital, said: “It is always a race to see who is born first.

“It’s very much like Christmas babies. It looks like it was a very busy night last night.”

She added: “It’s also a bit of a competition between the hospitals, we always want to be the first.”

The second baby in Southampton’s hospital was born at 2.16am to parents Linny and Christopher Bartlett, from Southampton.

She was the couple’s second daughter.

Linny said: “Baby doesn’t have a name yet. It feels pretty good that she is the second born.”

Ellie-Mae Handcock and Connor Battle also welcomed a new addition to the family in the new year. Baby Ollie was born at 7.16am.

In Winchester, two new year babies were born.

At Royal Hampshire County Hospital, two couples welcomed their new arrivals during the early hours of the morning.

Stephanie and Sam Mitchell, from Botley, welcomed their new baby boy at 1.51am, making him the first baby born in Winchester this year.

It was then the turn of James and Katie Prankerd, of Kings Worthy, who welcomed Gracie-May into the world at 2.23am.

They were preparing to take her home yesterday afternoon.

It is estimated that there were 679,106 births in the UK in 2017 according to the most recent research.

It showed that around 2,025 babies were born every day in 2017.

In 2016, 774,835 babies were born with 2,122 babies born each day.

The number of births for 2018 has not yet been calculated.