Baby born on trans Pacific flight to S America

A report in the Sunday Telegraph says that with no bed, the mother denying she was even pregnant, and the baby stuck in a dangerous breech position, but somehow, tiny Barbara arrived safely as Lan Chile’s Flight LA800 travelled at 35,000 feet over the Pacific.

Holidaying Australian doctor Jenny Cook was declared an “angel” after turning the baby around and successfully delivering her with only a basic first-aid kit and an emergency oxygen mask on hand, while dozing passengers remained oblivious as Barbara was making her surprise entrance on to airline blankets spread on the floor of the plane.

The drama occurred on April 7, when a 26-year-old Brazilian woman known only as Aline complained of back pain about 10 hours into a flight from Auckland to Santiago with the Lan Chile flight crew approaching Dr Cook, 37, in the darkened cabin because her boarding pass had identified her as a medical practitioner.

Although Aline was undergoing contractions and her waters had broken, the distressed woman was adamant she was not pregnant, after a disbelieving Dr Cook gave Aline an internal examination, she confirmed the blonde traveller was 9cm dilated and there was little time to waste.

Worryingly, the baby was in the breech, or feet-first, position, which in many cases requires a caesarean delivery, with Dr Cook an obstetrician at the Flinders Medical Centre in Adelaide saying, “It was completely bizarre. I couldn’t believe it was happening.”

“I was asking her about her back pain, and she said she went to the toilet and passed a lot of water and “When I said, ‘We are going to have a baby very soon,’ a flight attendant offered to boil water and get warm blankets, but I said to her: ‘That only happens in the movies.”

“I didn’t know what was going to happen, if the baby was going to breathe, if the mother was going to bleed.”  “And if I had to make any cuts to get the baby out, were they going to give me a plastic knife?”

Panicked by the prospect of an in-flight delivery, the pilot offered to make an emergency landing on Easter Island, but Dr Cook maintained her professional calm, even cracking jokes to lighten the mood in the tension-filled cabin, saying, “It was Good Friday, and I said: ‘Don’t you think that’s kind of funny? Easter Island?”

“They spoke Spanish, and it was lost in translation, but after a while, they understood and laughed …but they said: ‘Really, do you want us to land the plane?”

With the baby already on its way, Dr Cook was forced to perform the delivery on board, next to the toilets and meal preparation area, with blankets spread on the ground, curtains drawn and Aline was moved to a seat with her head against the window.

The language barrier meant that one of the flight attendants became a translator for the doctor and the patient, who spoke only Portuguese, with four stunned and stressed crew members watching, while Dr Cook guided baby Barbara into the world in a matter of minutes.

Aline was ushered to the front of the plane, where she breast-fed her new arrival for the remaining two and a half hours of the flight.

A medical team came aboard when the aircraft touched down and Dr Cook’s efforts did not go unrewarded with after her delivery duties, she was upgraded to first class, presented with a bottle of vintage French champagne and thanked profusely.

“None of the passengers even knew what had happened,” Dr Cook said, “There must be easier ways to get an upgrade!”

On her return flight home to Australia a month later, she was presented with a bottle of French perfume and given a kiss of thanks by the pilot.

A grateful Aline has since e-mailed her hero to let her know she and Barbara are doing well, calling Dr Cook “my angel”.

In-flight births are not unheard of with British Airways reporting about one a year and last December, a 42-year-old woman gave birth to a girl on a flight from Mexico to Chicago, with in this case the mother also fortunate, because an obstetrician was aboard the Mexicana Airlines plane.

Many airlines refuse to fly heavily pregnant women, not just for medical reasons but because giving birth at altitude raises issues of citizenship.

Many countries, as well as the United Nations, have procedures and recommendations for classifying the geographic details of an in-air birth and the UN considers a child born in-flight to have been born in the aircraft’s registered country.

Some countries deem the city where the child disembarked from the plane as the place of birth, and the plane’s registered country as the place of citizenship.

Report by The Mole