A Delta flight going from Salt Lake City to Hawaii started out ordinarily enough. Most of the people on the flight were looking forward to a nice peaceful stay in Hawaii.
Then there were panicked cries for help as a woman started having extremely sharp pains. Crew and passengers rushed to assist in what would turn out to be something more than just a medical emergency. It would be the birth of a son that the woman didn’t know she was carrying.
Lavinia Mounga would become a mom on that flight.
The delivery team
When Lavinia went into labor, the flight crew asked if there were any doctors on board. There ended up being a doctor, a physician’s assistant, and even three NICU nurses from Kansas who were accustomed to caring for premature babies. The mother and baby would have the perfect team to assist with the delivery, even if the plane wasn’t exactly a standard delivery room.
Air delivery
They were three hours from Hawaii when Lavinia went into labor. At first, the nurses were asking if the pilot could turn the plane around, and they wanted to know what the nearest airport was.
However, because the plane was already out over the Pacific, and because the mom and baby were doing so well with the care they were receiving and weren’t in any immediate danger, it was decided that the best decision would be to land in Hawaii as planned and make sure the mom her newborn baby boy got care there.
Making it work
Luckily, commercial planes are stocked with medical supplies for this kind of emergency, as well as several others. It’s not entirely uncommon for women to go into labor and end up delivering a baby while still in the air, especially on long flights. Although, in most cases, the pregnancy is obvious by that time.
The team of medical workers had all of the supplies they needed to support mom and baby. They delivered the infant in one of the airplane’s bathrooms. It wasn’t an ideal space to give birth, but the team worked with what they had available.
A tiny surprise
When tiny Raymond was born, it was immediately obvious why his mom didn’t know she was pregnant. It would turn out that he was born at only 23 weeks. The nurses originally estimated that the birth was between 26 and 27 weeks, but the hospital later confirmed that it was closer to 23 weeks.
It was unlikely that mom would have started showing by then. The baby was just too small to have caused any major changes in his mother’s belly by that stage.
He was so incredibly tiny that the nurses were concerned about him. Despite that, and with the help of those amazing NICU nurses, he made it through the rest of the flight in good shape.
Landing safely
The pilot had already alerted people on the ground while they were still in the air. Everyone cheered when the plane landed safely in Honolulu and the baby and mother were still doing okay.
The two of them were immediately brought to a nearby hospital by the airline crew emergency medical services group.
Once they reached Kapiolani Medical Center, they were examined and given medical care. The mom would be released within a couple of days. The baby was also healthy but would need to stay in the NICU at the hospital for a while longer due to his size.
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