Waitress Gives Birth in Bath Moments After Realizing She Is Pregnant

Pregnant women in black clothing. Michalina/Unsplash

A waitress gave birth on her own in the bath of her London home just moments after realizing she was pregnant—and in the final stages of labor.

Charlotte Dubard, 24, had no indication that she was pregnant, according to the Daily Mail, and had remained at her usual size eight to ten throughout what she now understands was her pregnancy.

On Jan. 29, she experienced abdominal cramping for a few hours before she finally figured out she was in labor and gave birth to a 6 pound 8 ounce healthy baby.

After using a pair of nail scissors to cut the umbilical cord, she called her boyfriend, Miguel Angel.

“When Miguel came home, he screamed ‘Oh my god you found a baby in the street!’” said Dubard, according to the Daily Mail.

“I started bawling and said ‘This is ours.’ He was in shock. Neither of us could believe it was ours. It was the most mysterious thing.”

She said that she had started to get cramps the night before, which were milder than her period pains. The next day, as the cramps (contractions) continued she decided to examine herself and found the baby’s head was already crowning—she was not only pregnant, but in the end stages of giving birth.

She said that her periods had remained normal throughout the pregnancy, according to the Mirror, and she had continued to take the contraceptive pill during her pregnancy.

“I obviously gained a little bit of weight but nowhere near enough to make me think I could be pregnant,' she said.

She added: “In hindsight, I was craving a lot of sugar, and I did also have a problem with my leg which meant I had to be off work for a week. The doctor said that was probably the pressure from the baby.”

The couple has called the baby Elias.

“I call him my miracle baby because he is so healthy after all I put him through,” she said.

“Also, so many things could have gone wrong with me giving birth alone but it all went remarkably smoothly.

“The midwives even asked me how I knew where to cut the umbilical cord because if I had done it wrong it could have been so dangerous.”

Woman Wakes Up With a Baby Bump

Last year another British woman gave birth less than an hour after also realizing she was pregnant.

Nineteen-year-old Emmalouise Leggate told the Scottish Daily Record she had gone to bed with a “flat stomach” and then woke up with a baby bump. She gave birth just 45 minutes later to her 7 pounds, 12 ounce daughter in a Glasgow hospital car park.

“The doctors couldn’t explain why I didn’t have a bump. They just told me that she must have been sitting in my lower back and that it is quite common,” she said.

Symptomless Pregnancies

Although it is unusual, medics confirm that it is possible for a pregnancy to go undetected.

There are no accurate figures for the number of pregnancies that fly under the radar in the UK, according to Patrick O'Brien, a consultant obstetrician at University College London Hospitals.

However, O'Brien told the BBC that an obstetrician would see typically such a case about once a year.

“It can happen. There are women who have infrequent periods anyway and also have no sickness, so these signs can be missed.”

A file image shows a newborn baby's feet. Pixabay

“Also if women are overweight they may not notice the bump getting bigger and they can also miss the baby moving.

“Sometimes, if all these things coincide, they can be unaware.”

Every midwife has come across one or two such cases said Sue Jacob, a midwife teacher at the Royal College of Midwives.

“It depends how aware women are of their body,” she told the BBC. “Some just don’t have an awareness of what’s going on.”

She says the cases cross all social classes and age groups.

“There are menopausal women, teenagers and very affluent, highly-educated women. No one is immune,” she said.