Expectant parents may meticulously plan for their birth experiences, but nature occasionally likes to remind us that babies arrive on their own schedules. A child’s entrance into the world can happen when a mother least expects it, and in the strangest of places. While as of 2012, 98.64 percent of American births were in hospitals, plenty of women make plans to give birth at home or in a birthing center. But the best-laid plans can go awry, and there are some truly awesome stories of moms giving birth in the wildest of places.
An estimated 5 percent of out-of-hospital births take place in clinics, doctor’s offices, or "other locations." Despite being very rare, those births in “other locations” are the ones that seem to regularly make the news, with unreal tales of moms giving birth in bustling public places or wherever else they may need to.
Childbirth can be beautiful, terrifying, and totally raw, even when it happens exactly as planned. So can you imagine who intense it is to give birth on a train, or in a tree? Below, some of the most bizarre locations women have given birth.
Aberdeen Police Department / Facebook
On a trip from North Carolina to New York last Saturday, Sheera Lowe, whose due date was March 4, realized she was in labor. She'd been visiting her 4-year-old daughter and husband, who'd just started a new job, and was on her way back up north on her own. In the cafe car of the Amtrak train, Lowe turned to a fellow passenger and said, "I think I'm in labor. Can you please help me?" The train's conductor planned to make an unscheduled stop ten minutes away so Lowe could receive medical care, but the baby couldn't wait that long. After just 18 minutes, Trinity Christina Stokes was born. The baby girl's middle name, Christina, is in honor of the brave passenger who stayed by Lowe's side through the entire ordeal after she asked for help.
In 2013, Shardonnay Hill stopped at a Lake Wales, Florida McDonald's on her way to a routine doctor's appointment. She was just six months along in her pregnancy, but went into labor in the restaurant bathroom. Heroic McDonald's staffers called 911 and helped deliver the baby by following the phone operator's instructions. After she had been on the phone for just five minutes, little Joshua Murray was born.
Amanda McBride / Jalopnik
When Amanda McBride of Bagley, Minnesota went into labor with her third son in 2010, she left work early and picked up her husband, Joseph Phillips, on the way to the hospital. Since Phillips suffers from seizures, McBride did the driving, but as they got closer to the hospital, her water broke. Phillips grabbed the wheel of the car and attempted to steer them to safety as the baby made a quick appearance. Phillips steered the car into the hospital's parking lot while McBride held their new baby, also named Joseph.
Nicknamed the "Miracle on 68th Street," the 2014 birth of little Ila Isabelle McCourt took place on an Upper East Side street corner in New York City. Her mom, Polly McCourt, was in her apartment building (on, you guessed it, 68th Street) when she realized she was in labor. She headed downstairs, where the building's doorman, Anton Rudovic, took her outside to hail a cab. "I went downstairs to get a taxi and my water broke, right in the front foyer of the building,” she told the New York Daily News. McCourt sat down on the street with Rudovic's help, and gave birth right then and there. A crowd of kind passersby stopped to help, offering up shirts and coats to keep mother and daughter warm while they waited for an ambulance to arrive. In fact, Ila's middle name was chosen in honor of an especially caring woman who gave the coat off her back to the pair.
Marni Kotak
In 2011, artist Marni Kotak gave birth to her son, Ajax, at Microscope Gallery in Brooklyn. Kotak turned her labor experience into a performance art piece, "The Birth of Baby X," and invited about 20 guests to watch. The gallery was temporarily transformed into a birthing center to accommodate the exhibition.
In 2011, Aida Alamillo went into early labor on a Philippine Airlines flight from Manila to San Francisco. Alamillo's final destination was Massachusetts, where several family members lived. Three nurses were on board the flight, and they joined the flight crew in helping deliver Alamillo's son, Kevin Raymar Francis Domingo. The name "Francis" was given because he was born on the way to San Francisco.
Junelle Wilson and her husband, Stuart, were living on the remote Scottish island of Mull when she went into labor in 2009. A lifeboat arrived to take Wilson to the nearby town of Oban, where she could receive medical care, but her son, little Van Harris Wilson, simply couldn't wait that long to make his entrance. The little boy was born at sea, just five minutes away from the dock where an ambulance was waiting for Wilson.
Back in 2000, super mom Sofia Pedro gave birth in a tree to avoid swirling floodwaters on the ground in Mozambique. Her daughter Rosita made her appearance just moments before a South African helicopter crew arrived to rescue the mom and baby from the tree's branches. When the crew arrived, Rosita's umbilical cord was still attached. After her dramatic helicopter rescue, resting with her healthy baby on high ground, Pedro could only tell reporters, "I'm so happy."
Photo Credit: Aberdeen Police Department / Facebook
