Teaneck Mayor's Son Born During Hurricane Sandy

With Hurricane Sandy battering his town, Teaneck Mayor Mohammed Hameeduddin had enough to worry about. 

That was before his pregnant wife started going into labor early Oct. 30, hours after the storm made landfall. 

“It was scary. The winds were howling and I was hoping it wasn’t contractions,” said Hameeduddin's wife, Faiza Poshni. “But as they got closer, I knew we had to go right then.” 

Hameeduddin, in a Hackensack University Medical Center press release announcing the birth, said at first he couldn't believe what was happening. 

“I said, ‘are you serious,’ and she said, ‘Yes. I think I’m having the baby!"

The mayor called 911 and phoned the family doctor. 

As high winds lashed Teaneck, downing electrical wires and making roadways increasingly dangerous, it became clear the couple couldn't make it to Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, where the doctor is an attending physician. 

“It’s 40 minutes in good weather and we wondered what would it be like during a hurricane?,” Faiza said in the release. 

Hameeduddin asked medics to take them to Hackensack hospital in case there were any complications. The hospital includes a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. 

A doctor at Hackensack's Donna A. Sanzari Women’s Hospital, Shelley Saber, took over and delivered Zain Hameeduddin through C-section later that morning, according to the medical center. The healthy baby boy had no complications, weighing seven pounds, 1.6 ounces.

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