Pennsylvania Woman Delivers Own Baby in Taco Bell Parking Lot

A Taco Bell fast food restaurant is seen in New Carrollton, Maryland, on Dec. 31, 2014. Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

A Pennsylvania woman gave birth in a Taco Bell parking lot with the help of a 911 operator who coached her through the ordeal over the phone.

Kelsey Sturm lives in South Park and woke up one day with contractions. She rushed to the car and tried to make it to the hospital but was forced to pull into the parking lot of a Taco Bell in West Mifflin.

She called 911 for help delivering her own baby.

“The 911 operator told me to find something to tie her cord. I had nothing so I found a ribbon that I had in my car. So she had a shiny ribbon tying her cord,” Sturm told WTAE.

She said her daughter Maddie was born after just one push.

They were later taken to the hospital and were there as of Dec. 7.

Sturm said that she'll tell her little girl the story someday and hopes to get free food from Taco Bell.

Baby Born at California Taco Bell

The Pennsylvania birth is not the first at a Taco Bell.

Another birth took place in the parking lot of a California Taco Bell back in 2015.

Firefighters responded to a maternity call around 2:30 a.m.

“The occasional thing happens where they are driving to the hospital and the baby gets delivered in the car, but Taco Bell parking lot is kind of a unique situation. It was an interesting call,” Patrick Snowling, one of the firefighters, told KBAK.

The baby was born in the passenger seat as the mother was assisted by the baby’s father and the baby’s grandmother.

The mother and baby were taken to a nearby hospital after paramedics took care of the mother and firefighters helped with the baby.

“I just made sure that it was stimulated and breathing OK. It was perfusing good, and, you know, it was a nice, healthy baby,” said Snowling.

Births in the United States

Some 3.86 million births took place in 2017 in the United States, according to a report (pdf) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published in November 2018. Data was gleaned from birth certificates.

That number was down two percent from 2016. Birth rates declined for women 39 or younger but increased for women aged 40 to 44.

The birth rate for women in their 20s continued to drop, a trend that started in 2006, and hit a record low for 20- to 24-year-olds, at 71 births per 1,000 women.

The rate for women aged 30 to 34 had been increasing in recent years but declined two percent from 2016 to 2017, the first decline since 2010. The birth rate for women aged 35 to 39 also declined by one percent, the first decline since 2010.

But the birth rate for women aged 40 to 44 was up to 11.6 births per 1,000 women, a two percent increase since 2016, and continuing a trend since 1985. Women aged 45 to 49 saw a birth rate of 0.9 births per 1,000 women, a figure unchanged from 2016, but the number of births to women aged 45 and over rose three percent from 2016 to 2017.

There were 840 births to women 50 or older, essentially unchanged since the previous year, although the number has been increasing since 1997.

From NTD.com