Baby born on DL flight to Hawaii

Old May 3, 2021, 12:29 pm
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Baby born on DL flight to Hawaii

https://www.hawaiipacifichealth.org/...ght-to-hawaii/

“About halfway through the flight, there was an emergency call, and I've experienced this before and usually they're pretty clear asking if there is a doctor on board,” recalls Dr. Glenn. “This call was not like this and it was fairly urgent. I let the flight attendant know that I’m a physician and she said we have a woman having a baby, so I hurried over to see what I could do.

Bamfield, Beeding and Ho, nurses specially trained to care for premature or ill babies needing intensive care, were already on the scene helping mom and baby, who had arrived early at just 29 weeks.

“We were about halfway through the flight and we heard someone call out for medical help,” says Bamfield. “I went to see what was going on and see her there holding a baby in her hands, and it’s little."

“That definitely means something to us because we work in the NICU,” added Ho.

For the remainder of the flight, Bamfield, Beeding and Ho worked together with Dr. Glenn to take care of mom and baby.

“I don't know how a patient gets so lucky as to have three neonatal intensive care nurses onboard the same flight when she is in emergency labor, but that was the situation we were in,” says Dr. Glenn, who is pictured at left with new mom Lavi Mounga. “The great thing about this was the teamwork. Everybody jumped in together and everyone helped out.

“Basically, you need somebody to watch the mom too because we have two patients, not just one. So someone’s got to help cut the cord, someone’s got to help deliver the placenta, we’ve got to check vital signs on mom. Meanwhile we’re trying to resuscitate baby, make sure baby’s breathing, get baby warmed up. That’s a lot of work to do, and we’re all trying to work in a very small, confined space in an airplane, which is pretty challenging. But the teamwork was great.”

Given that airplanes also aren’t equipped to provide care for a premature baby, Dr. Glenn had to rely on previous wilderness medicine training. He and the nurses used a couple of shoelaces to tie and cut through the umbilical cord, made baby warmers out of bottles that were microwaved, and used an Apple Watch to measure the baby’s heart rate.

“We didn’t have the usual tools found in a neonatal intensive care unit, so there were a lot of vital signs we couldn’t track,” adds Dr. Glenn.

The team improvised with what they did have available and worked together to keep baby stable for three hours until the plane landed.

“I was literally counting down the time on my watch, between where we are in the flight to when we can get this child to Kapiolani,” said Dr. Glenn, who is a physician at Straub Medical Center, which along with Kapiolani is part of the Hawaii Pacific Health system. “As soon as we got him on board the ambulance, we headed straight for Kapiolani. And once he arrived there, the emergency room took great care of him, moved him up to the NICU, and baby and mom are both doing great.”
The flight was on 28 April, from SLC.

Several commenters wondered why the passenger was allowed to board if she was anywhere near her due date. Delta does not prohibit pregnant travelers.

“At Delta, we don’t impose restrictions on flying if you’re pregnant and don’t require a medical certificate for you to travel,” the airline says on its website. “If you’re traveling after your eighth month, it’s a good idea to check with your doctor to be sure travel is not restricted.”

Aside from comments such as, “She just saved $20k in hospital bills,” and “The only time it’s okay to clap when the plane lands,” many viewers wondered about what such a unique delivery would mean for the baby’s birth certificate.

...

“If a birth occurred en route, that is in a moving conveyance (e.g., an airplane) the place of birth becomes where the newborn was first removed from the conveyance, or in this instance, the airplane,” said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman Scott Pauley in an email.

Once the plane landed, passengers waited for the mother to be escorted off by wheelchair first, then resumed disembarking normally like the miracle of life didn’t just unfold in their midst.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/trave...baby-born-air/
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Last edited by amanuensis; May 3, 2021 at 12:50 pm
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Old May 3, 2021, 1:06 pm
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Wow! Congratulations on those two. You have a beautiful baby. What a little miracle!!
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Old May 3, 2021, 1:25 pm
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I saw this on our news last night. They said the mother did not even know she was pregnant. I find that incredibly hard to believe.

Lavinia was allowed to fly during her third trimester because she didn't know she was pregnant.”

“Just in her third trimester, childbirth was the last thing in Mounga's mind. According to the Daily Mail, when one of the passengers asked her father about her traveling in her third trimester, he exclaimed that she herself had no idea that she expecting!“
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Old May 3, 2021, 1:35 pm
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Poor kid, arriving in Hawaii with out a COVID test.

Congrats to the family though! Like seeing happy stories
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Old May 3, 2021, 5:50 pm
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Originally Posted by HWGeeks
Poor kid, arriving in Hawaii with out a COVID test.

Congrats to the family though! Like seeing happy stories
Dont worry! The baby will be all right. They will figure it out soon.
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Old May 3, 2021, 6:17 pm
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I am glad mom and baby are safe. I have heard multiple reports living in SLC that she didn't know she was pregnant and if she was that far along and knew was that really the best decision to fly? Not a parent here nor will be but sometimes common sense also needs to be thought before flying over an ocean.
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Old May 3, 2021, 10:43 pm
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Hmmm, so how many FF miles does the baby get? Seems like a great story but a clerical nightmare
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Old May 4, 2021, 5:52 am
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[

QUOTE=Finkface;33223497]I saw this on our news last night. They said the mother did not even know she was pregnant. I find that incredibly hard to believe.

Lavinia was allowed to fly during her third trimester because she didn't know she was pregnant.

Just in her third trimester, childbirth was the last thing in Mounga's mind. According to the Daily Mail, when one of the passengers asked her father about her traveling in her third trimester, he exclaimed that she herself had no idea that she expecting![/QUOTE]

I worked with a woman who only realised she was pregnant at 6 months
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Old May 4, 2021, 6:04 am
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Its nice to have a happy story with a happy ending these days. Congratulations to the new mother!

Trivia fact: when the child gets a passport, it will list the location of the birth as In The Air.
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Old May 4, 2021, 6:09 am
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Youd be surprised how many people dont know theyre pregnant and find out in labour

If I knew I was 29 weeks pregnant, would I fly to Hawaii? Yeah, if it was an uncomplicated pregnancy
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Old May 4, 2021, 7:43 am
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Made the news here in Kansas City because the nurses were from here (North Kansas City Hospital I believe).
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Old May 4, 2021, 8:01 am
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Originally Posted by mtofell
Hmmm, so how many FF miles does the baby get? Seems like a great story but a clerical nightmare
Don't worry. Somebody here at FT will figure it out to the fraction of a segment. And then somebody else will question the fairness of it all.
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Old May 4, 2021, 8:50 am
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Originally Posted by Finkface
I saw this on our news last night. They said the mother did not even know she was pregnant. I find that incredibly hard to believe.

Lavinia was allowed to fly during her third trimester because she didn't know she was pregnant.

Just in her third trimester, childbirth was the last thing in Mounga's mind. According to the Daily Mail, when one of the passengers asked her father about her traveling in her third trimester, he exclaimed that she herself had no idea that she expecting!
A woman a few years behind me in high school (this was well after HS) didn't know she was pregnant until she was in labor. Her husband had to go to Target by himself to get literally everything. Car seat, crib, diapers, clothes, etc, Their apartment wasn't ready, none of their family or friends were there, no baby shower nothing. Literally Monday morning started normally, and it ended with them being parents of a newborn. Life is a crazy thing that takes no defined path.
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Old May 6, 2021, 9:01 pm
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Woman Gives Birth on DL Flight Unaware She was Expecting




Out of Nowhere

Lavinia 'Lavi' Mounga was unaware she was pregnant when she boarded a flight from her home in Utah to Honolulu last week. However, things became clear as day for Mounga when she gave birth to a child on the same flight.

"I just didn't know I was pregnant, and then this guy just came out of nowhere," she said during an interview with Hawaii Pacific Health. Newborn Raymond Mounga came to this world at just 29 weeks as her mother was going on vacation with her family to Hawaii.
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Old May 7, 2021, 10:03 am
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This may be a stupid question but how on Earth do you not know or at least suspect you may be pregnant by 29 weeks?

Glad everything worked out alright though.
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