A woman from Philippines delivered a baby girl aboard a Manila-bound flight, which made an emergency landing at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Shamshabad. After the delivery in wee hours of May 8, the mother and the baby with umbilical cord intact were shifted to Apollo Cradle, Jubilee Hills.
The due date of the woman, who was in her 35th week of pregnancy and reportedly works in Saudi Arabia, was three weeks away. However, soon after she boarded the flight headed to the Philippine capital, she developed labour pain.
A team of three doctors and two nurses from Apollo Cradle, Jubilee Hills, who received distress calls at around 2 a.m., reached the airport before the flight landed. The doctors said by the time they rushed into the flight, the woman was in advanced stage of labour. They performed the delivery in the space behind rows of seats.
Challenging delivery
C. Archana Reddy, junior consultant at Apollo Cradle, who was part of the team, said it was a normal delivery. However, since the woman was bleeding and had a minor tear, she was in need of medical attention.
The newborn’s condition had to be diagnosed in Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU). She weighed around 3.2 kg at birth.
“Because everything we needed were sharp instruments such as blades and scissors, we could not carry them into the flight for security reasons. We could not completely separate placenta and the umbilical cord was not cut either. After the delivery, they were shifted to the hospital in an ambulance,” Dr. Archana Reddy said, adding that there was no scope for the woman to be shifted from the flight to a hospital or into the airport before delivery.
C. Suresh Kumar, head of department of Pediatrics and Neonatology, Apollo Cradle, Jubilee Hills, said medical support was provided to the baby, who is now fit to travel.
Previous instances
In August 2016, a Filipino woman, Holiday, gave birth to a premature baby girl mid-flight, when she was travelling from United Arab Emirates to Philippines.
The flight made emergency landing in Hyderabad and the mother and the baby were shifted to a private hospital.
Four months before that incident, Mary Grace Alejandro, a 40-year-old Filipino, delivered a premature baby girl mid-air while travelling from Dubai to Manila. This flight too made emergency landing in the city and the mother and baby were shifted to a privae hospital. However, due to complications, the premature baby girl did not survive.
