January 01, 2024
Provided Image/Virtua Health
A family from Merchantville, Camden County has welcomed twin boys born in different years at Virtua Voorhees Hospital. Older brother Ezra was born at 11:48 p.m. on Dec. 31, 2023, while his younger brother Ezekiel was born at 12:28 a.m. on Jan. 1, 2024.
While it's surprising yet possible for twins to have different birthdays — if one is born after midnight — a pair of newborn South Jersey twins have an even more unique story.
Not only were twin brothers Ezra and Ezekiel born at Virtua Voorhees Hospital on different days and in different months, but they were also born in separate years. That's because one of the boys was born on New Year's Eve in 2023, and the other was born on New Year's Day in 2024.
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The older twin, Ezra, was born at 11:48 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 31, and younger twin Ezekiel was born at 12:28 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 1. Ezra weighed 6 pounds and measured 18-and-three-quarters inches long at birth, while Ezekiel weighed 4 pounds and measured 17-and-one-quarter inches long.
The special bros will live in Merchantville, Camden County, with their parents and an older brother who turns three on Jan. 3. Twins Ezekiel and Ezra were born in different years, since one of the babies was born on New Year's Eve and the other on New Year's Day at Virtua Voorhees Hospital.
Provided Image/Virtua Health
"To make their birthdays even more special, Ezra shares his birthday with his dad, Billy, who is a New Year’s Eve baby, too," Virtua Health said in a release. "Parents Eve and Billy are thrilled that their boys are healthy and will have a great birthday story to tell."
Over 114,000 sets of twins were born in the U.S. in the year 2021, according to the CDC. Of that number, it's rare for twins to have different birthdays. It's even more unlikely for twins to be born in different years. The chance of twins being born in different years is just 1 in 2 million, according to Natividad Medical Center in California.
This year, a similar situation has been reported in Connecticut. Twins Seven and Souli were born in 2023 and 2024, respectively, at Yale New Haven Hospital. The rare New Year's occurrence also happened at Natividad when fraternal twins Alfredo and Aylin were born in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
Twins in Indiana were born in different decades, when one was born in 2019 and the other in 2020. At the turn of the millennium, several sets of twins were born in different centuries.
Along with Virtua, other hospitals in the region have begun sharing news of the first babies born in the new year. Penn Medicine's first arrival in 2024 is named Matias and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital's first baby of the new year is named Issa.
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