Mom Goes Into Labor Mid-Flight, Quick Thinking Doctor Uses Shoestring To Help Deliver Baby
Most people avoid planes or any extreme forms of travel (or really any travel) when they’re close to their due date. Babies are notorious for holding to their own timelines, and it’s impossible to know exactly when they’ll make their debut.
Despite the most careful planning, surprise arrivals can and do happen. When you’re at home or on familiar turf, at least you can be rushed to the nearest hospital.
But what do you do when you’re in a plane, hours from the nearest airport? One mother found the answer to that at the end of last year.
Toyin Ogundipe, the 41-year-old who was pregnant, already had a daughter, Amy, who was 4 years old. They were on an Air France flight from Paris to New York.
At about the halfway mark, Ogundipe started going into labor. Most people would find that terrifying: traveling high up in the air with no stop in sight and about to have a baby.
Fortunately for the mother, there were capable people on board to help. The flight attendants kept Amy busy while her mother was looked after.
By some miracle, two doctors were on board. Dr. Susan Shepherd, a French pediatrician, and Dr. Sij Hemal, a urologist who’d helped deliver several babies before.
They used the on-flight first aid kit to keep tabs on Ogundipe’s vitals and were able to get her moved to First Class, where they’d have a little more room to help her out and where there were fewer people.
“Her contractions were about 10 minutes apart,” said Hemal, “so the pediatrician and I began to monitor her vital signs and keep her comfortable.”
The contractions steadily increased, and the doctors soon discovered that she was going to have her baby before they were able to land.
“We’re trained to stay calm and think clearly in emergency situations,” said Hemal. “I just tried to think ahead to what might go wrong, and come up with a creative solution.”
Fortunately, they were able to deliver the baby — promptly named Jake — without any major issues. Dr. Hemal even had to use a shoelace to tie off the baby’s umbilical cord.
Ogundipe did marvelously, trusting her fate and her child’s to the skilled doctors assisting her.
“I was relaxed because I knew I was in safe hands,” said Ogundipe. “They did everything a doctor or midwife would have done if I was in the labor room in the hospital. Even better, if you ask me.”
But a smooth delivery was not guaranteed, and Dr. Hemal knows this better than most. “I was pretty tired from jet lag,” he said. “I thought I’d just have a drink and fall asleep. As it turned out, I’m glad I didn’t drink anything.”
“So much could have gone wrong, but it didn’t. Being on that particular flight, sitting next to a pediatrician … it’s like it was destiny. Thanks to God, everything worked out.”
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