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A Canadian woman got the shock of her life on a flight to Japan when she gave surprise birth to a baby while flying over the Pacific Ocean. Prior to that she had no idea she was pregnant.
According to an Global News, Ada Guan took a pregnancy test when she had put on weight but it came back negative. She had even visited a doctor right before the trip. She and her partner, Wesley Branch, had been dating for a year and had no clue they were about to become parents, even though Guan was 37 weeks pregnant at the time of the birth, which is almost full-term.
Branch said, “She told me, ‘Something fell out of me.’ I lifted up her pants and I saw a head and then I heard, ‘Wah,'” adding, “I thought, ‘Oh my god, I think we have a kid.'”
Dr. Doug Wilson, a University of Calgary department head of obstetrics and gynecology, said that such births are very uncommon. “The vast majority of women will have early nausea, will have breast tenderness and things like that and also missing a period. Sometimes if you don’t think it can happen to you, you’re going to deny some of those very normal symptoms and put them down to indigestion, or the flu, or one of those types of things,” he said.
Last year, a woman from Iowa gave birth to twins after visiting a clinic with stomach pains. She was actually six months pregnant and the babies were delivered via Caesarian as they were at high risk.
In Massachusetts this year, another woman gave birth to a 10-pound baby merely an hour after she was told she was pregnant. The woman had thought that the extra weight she had put on was due to indulging in food during the holidays.
In the US a reality TV show consisting of at least fifty episodes told the stories of women who did not know they were pregnant. In fiction, in the first season of the show Mad Men, which broadcast its final episode in May 2015, a character named Peggy gives birth without being aware that she was pregnant.
While surprise births are usually happy accidents, it does lead to concerns that not being aware of a pregnancy could mean that certain precautions and dietary needs are neglected. Doctors advise pregnant woman to increase their nutrition and intake of folic acid, and to avoid alcohol, smoking and certain medication to keep risks to the baby at a minimum. These are precautions that may not be followed when a pregnant woman is unaware she is carrying a child.