A female sailor gave birth on a US Navy aircraft carrier in the middle of the Persian Gulf on September 11. Before boarding the ship in June, she did not know she was pregnant.
According to a US Navy spokesperson, the female sailor mentioned above had a stomach ache since last weekend and was taken to the medical room on the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. Here, the ship’s medical team discovered that she had “good news”.
“The general practitioner who performed this special birth is certified in obstetrics and also has experience in delivering babies,” said Commander Bill Urban, a spokesman for the US Navy’s 5th Fleet.
The baby born on the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower on September 11 is a girl. The baby weighed 3.1 kg and was born crying at 4:35 a.m. local time.
According to Mr. Urbab, both mother and child are healthy. The mother said she did not know she was pregnant when the ship left the port of Norfolk, Virginia on June 1.
The commander added that the mother and child were taken by helicopter to Bahrain and rested at a coastal hospital for further monitoring.
It is known that the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower is currently in its 7th month of deployment in the Persian Gulf. Airplanes departing from here are conducting a campaign against the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) terrorist group in Iraq and Syria.
Meanwhile, another special “escape” took place in the Mediterranean Sea. A Nigerian woman gave birth to a baby boy on a lifeboat in the Mediterranean after being rescued from a crowded rubber boat on September 12.
According to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), because he was born in international waters , this boy’s nationality is still being discussed. They said the baby’s parents, Mr. Otas and Ms. Faith Oqunbor, decided to name their child Newman Otas.
Before that, they made the dangerous sea crossing with their two children, a 7-year-old and a 5-year-old, and were rescued just 24 hours before baby Newman was born. A midwife on the rescue ship MV Aquarius described the labor as “normal in unusual and dangerous conditions.”
Ms Oqunbor said she felt “extremely stressed” while floating on the rubber boat and had felt contractions for three days.
Baby Newman Otas with his mother and midwife Jonquil Nicholl. Photo: Twitter, MSF
The midwife who delivered Ms Oqunbor, Ms Jonquil Nicholl, said: “I feel scared thinking about what would have happened if the baby had been born 24 hours early on that overcrowded rubber boat.
And 48 hours before that, they were still waiting on a beach in Libya, not knowing what would happen to them.”
MSF communications officer Alva White said similar incidents rarely occur on rescue ships. However, in May, a Cameron woman also gave birth on the Aquarius ship.
According to Ms. White, there are currently 392 people on the ship, including 7 pregnant women.
Thousands of refugees and migrants have risked their lives, trying to cross the sea from Libya to Europe in search of a better life. In 2015, more than 3,700 people are believed to have died on the dangerous journey.
