An Iowa woman recently gave birth to a baby while taking a shower, the Des Moines Register reports.
Brittany Young, 24, of Des Moines said she decided to take a shower because she was having stomach pains. But they didn’t go away, and before she knew it, she pushed out a 6-pound, 8-ounce baby aptly named Miracle. A friend called an ambulance. Paramedics arrived, cut the umbilical cord and took the baby to Mercy Medical Center.
Young told the Des Moines Register that the baby opened its eyes and did not cry: “I was like, there’s a baby here.”
The more “surprise birth” stories are reported—whether it happens on a PATH train or in a Baltimore airport bathroom—the more it shows how unpredictable labor can be. “Some women don’t feel the pain of labor contractions,” as Time.com previously reported, based on a conversation with an obstetrician. “In other unusual situations, women who don’t realize they’re pregnant in the first place don’t identify contractions for what they are. As obesity rates rise, that scenario is likely to become more prevalent.”
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Write to Olivia B. Waxman at olivia.waxman@time.com