A woman became a mother while in the sky. Shortly after boarding an international flight earlier this month, an expectant mother found herself in an unexpected situation as she went into labor and ended up giving birth aboard the aircraft. The breathtaking moment was caught on camera.
Passengers on a Pegasus Airlines plane, bound for Marseille, France from Istanbul, cheered and applauded as paramedics from Sabiha Gökçen International Airport boarded the sky bus to help an unidentified woman who had just given birth moments before the takeoff. Reports indicate that the pregnant woman started experiencing intense labor pains just before the flight crew was making final preparations for the takeoff.
Incredible Moment
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Video footage of the high-octane event showed awestruck passengers leaning to catch a glimpse of the impromptu birth. One compassionate passenger is shown collecting what appears to be baby clothes from fellow travelers, intending to present them as a gift to the mother and child, the New York Post reported.
Flight attendants administered first aid to the woman before relocating her to the back of the plane for the birth.
A female paramedic carried the swaddled newborn, who did not appear to make noise, off the aircraft, as shown in video footage.
The child was later transported to a nearby hospital by ambulance for further care, the outlet reported.
Not the First Time
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This bundle of joy is not the only baby to have been born in flight. In October 2022, Kendria Rhoden, then 21, from Hartford, Connecticut, gave birth to a baby boy on an American Airlines flight from New York to the Dominican Republic.
A few weeks later, in December, another woman, who allegedly had no prior knowledge of her pregnancy, delivered a baby while traveling from Ecuador to Spain.
She named the baby Maximiliano in appreciation of one of the passengers who assisted in the safe delivery.
Childbirth on airplanes is uncommon because pregnant women are typically not allowed to fly in their third trimester.
According to Best-Citizenships, a global residence planning hub, there have been only around 75 recorded instances of babies being born above the clouds in the past century.
Despite these back-to-back baby debuts, such events remain rare due to regulations restricting pregnant women from flying during the later stages of pregnancy.
According to the medical aviation firm MedAire, friendly-sky births occur at a rate of approximately one in every 26 million passengers.
Dr. Paulo Alves, the brand’s global medical director, said in a 2018 interview with Condé Nast Traveler said, “It’s not the best place for you to have your child, for many reasons.
“For one thing, the air is thinner, so it’s harder for the baby to breathe,” he said. “It’s like giving birth to a premature child in Mexico City, altitude-wise.”
