When Raelin Scurry started feeling pains at 29 weeks she wrote them off as Braxton Hicks contractions. As it turns out, they were the real thing – but that wasn’t the mum’s only surprise for the day.
Th US mum has described how she and her husband were on their way to the hospital when they realised the baby was not going to wait and so with just one push she delivered her son herself.
It was only when she looked down that she realised something was different – her son was completely encased in his amniotic sac.
Raelin had experienced what’s called an en-caul birth – a rare occurrence where the baby is born with the amniotic sac completely or partially intact. Normally the sac would break during labour – which is where the term “waters broke” comes in.
As incredible as the sight of her son was, he was still 11 weeks premature and Raelin knew she had to get him medical attention right away.
“The (911) dispatcher told us to pull over. But I knew we would make it to the hospital before they would make it to us. So I told Ean to keep driving,” she wrote in an Instagram post of her son moments after he was born.
Top Comments
Wow, what an experience!!! Glad everyone is doing well.
So did she break the sac in the car or wait until they got to the hospital where the doctors did it? What should you do if this happens to you so that the baby has the best chance of survival? Do you need to break the sac so that the baby can breathe or will it get enough oxygen through the placenta while enclosed in the sac? for how long?