Woman Gives Birth on flight at 30,000 Feet

The passengers on United Airlines flight 997 had an uneventful trip over the Atlantic Ocean on Sunday. Uneventful other than the woman who gave birth on the airplane midflight at 30,000 feet. The flight departed from Kotoka International Airport in Accra, the capital of Ghana. It traveled to Washington Dulles International Airport on an 11-hour flight. 

Airplane Birth at 30,000 Feet

United Airlines told CNN Travel they had been in the air for roughly six hours when she went into labor. The mother traveled from Accra, Ghana, to Washington, D.C., when she started having contractions. She wasn’t expecting to deliver until late February, but the flight was halfway across the Atlantic when the baby decided Sunday was the day.

Dr. Stephen Ansah-Addo, a dermatology resident at the University of Michigan, responded to the call for a medical professional. A nurse from Dayton, Ohio, and another United flight attendant, also a nurse, joined him.

They went to work putting down blankets and towels, turning the area behind business class into a delivery room. The mother’s contractions increased for an hour until the doctor felt his head. “I couldn’t believe it was happening,” he said. “But I was trying to stay calm.”

Woman On Flight Began Praying Over Her

“I was asleep,” Tiani Warren, a passenger on the flight, of Los Angeles said. “I thought I was dreaming when I heard moaning. I got out of my seat, and I saw someone on the ground. A nurse was over her.” Warren described how Ansah- Addo and the two nurses delivered the baby, even while the plane hit turbulence. “I just started praying over her out loud as she was starting to push. She was crying. Before you knew it, the baby came out.”

She summed up how she felt after witnessing the ordeal on her Instagram. “I literally just witnessed a woman giving birth on the plane. And … I am stressed out, I’m excited. I’m tired. All in one. But the baby is a boy. It’s beautiful. It was a little sketchy at first, but God is good. This is unreal. … I’m in shock right now. This is crazy.”

Paramedics Met the New Mother on the Ground

Paramedics met the plane when the almost 12-hour flight landed at Dulles International Airport in D.C. “The delivery was uneventful other than being at 30,000 feet,” United Airlines said in a statement to ABC News. One United employee greeted the mother with a balloon and handwritten card that read: “On behalf of the United team at Washington Dulles, congratulations on your baby boy!”