{"id":210384,"date":"2024-02-29T19:33:11","date_gmt":"2024-03-01T00:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=210384"},"modified":"2025-09-19T14:40:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T18:40:09","slug":"little-leaplings-arrive-on-leap-year-at-uconn-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2024\/02\/little-leaplings-arrive-on-leap-year-at-uconn-health\/","title":{"rendered":"Little Leaplings Arrive on Leap Year at UConn Health"},"content":{"rendered":"

The chances of being born in a leap year are 1 in 1,461.\u00a0 Today at UConn Health, four babies joined this small and exclusive group called leaplings.<\/p>\n

Lily Bodnar came on her due date and was the first of the leaplings born at UConn Health coming into the world on this rare day at 4:08 a.m. at 7 lbs. 7oz joining her mothers Kelly and Sophia Bodnar of Southington.<\/p>\n

Caitlin Custy, Nurse in labor and delivery was there to help deliver Lily and says \u201cits so rare to be delivered on a leap year and these families are excited their babies are born on such a special day, it\u2019s great to be a part of.<\/p>\n

\"InfantSince Lily\u2019s due date was February 29th<\/sup>, her moms knew today could be her birthday, but were told first babies don\u2019t usually come on their due dates.\u00a0 Kelly was excited about the date from the beginning and thought it was cool to be born on such a rare day.\u00a0 Sophia was ambivalent about the date at first concerned her daughter would only have her birth day every four years, but she\u2019s now thrilled she is here and happy about the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the delivery room there is a lot of anticipation and range of emotions and to see someone become parents for first time or have another baby is indescribable and its just even more special today,\u201d says Custy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always a very rewarding experience bringing babies into the world, but today is extra special, it\u2019s like a mini holiday,\u201d says Justus Anderson, nurse, who participated in two of the births today.<\/p>\n

\u201cPicking birthdays for babies will be interesting,\u201d says Anderson.\u00a0 We met one father of a leapling and he said they decided on March 1st<\/sup> since that is the day today would have been had it not been a leap year.<\/p>\n

Someone born on a Leap Day typically will celebrate their birthday on Feb. 28 or March 1, but Feb. 29 is still used for identification and important documents. Leap Day babies are so rare that they make up less than 0.1% of the world’s population.<\/p>\n

Leap years were established as a correction to counter the fact that Earth’s orbit doesn’t exactly fit our 365-day calendar. The calendar accounts for Earth\u2019s imperfect rotation by adding an extra day in February every four years. It is a science developed over millenniums, dating back to the ancient Egyptians.<\/p>\n

Approximately 362,900 Americans have a Feb. 29 birthday, according to the Social Security Administration. By comparison, about 1.6 million can say they were born on March 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The chances of being born in a leap year are 1 in 1,461.\u00a0 Today at UConn Health, three babies joined this small and exclusive group called leaplings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":210385,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,2295],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2209],"class_list":["post-210384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uconn-health","category-womens-health"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-11 03:39:40","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210384"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235574,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210384\/revisions\/235574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/210385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210384"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=210384"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=210384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}