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It was all drama on flight LA800. A Brazilian woman who did not know she was pregnant gave birth to a baby in the dangerous breech position on an 11.5-hour flight from Auckland to Santiago.
Fortunately the Lan Chile flight crew had remembered the occupation listed on Australian obstetrician Jenny Cook's boarding card, and they asked her to assist 26-year-old passenger Aline. "Everyone was asleep, the flight attendant came up to me, tapped me on the shoulder and said there was a woman with back pain," Cook, 37, told the Herald on Sunday.
"It was completely bizarre, she told me that she had lost a lot of water after going to the toilet but was adamant she wasn't pregnant, even saying her periods had been normal.
"She lay on the ground by the toilet and I got handed a glove. I told her that I would prove she was pregnant."
Next came the arrival - 35,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean, laid on blankets next to the meal preparation area, and nine hours away from Chile.
But baby Barbara was stuck in the breech position.
Although Cook had delivered more than 1000 babies during her 16-year career she wasn't sure she would be capable of doing a caesarean mid-air with nothing more than a passenger's food knife and no anaesthetic. "She would have screamed and been in so much pain," Cook said. But with the blond traveller 9cm dilated, there was no time to waste. Cook doesn't deliver babies any more but, on this holiday, she was about to play midwife to a non-English speaking first-time mum.
"I just got myself into work mode," she remembered. Two contractions and two-and-a-half hours later "without anyone even noticing", baby Barbara entered the world.
Asked what would have happened if there was no medical professional on board the flight, Cook trembled. "I don't like to think about it."
Cook has been overwhelmed by her celebrity status since the labour, saying she "could not believe" the media interest in the impromptu birth or how people have labelled her a "hero". "It has been huge, it's been in every Australian newspaper and even made it to some European countries like Belgium.
"I think people are sick of stories about murder and killing and people were ready for a nice story."
Apart from the medical risks that come with giving birth at altitude, it is often a problem for citizenship, according to airline sources.
The United Nations says a child born in-flight is a citizen of the aircraft's registered nation. However some countries deem the city where the child disembarked from the plane as the place of birth, and the plane's country as the place of citizenship.
Air New Zealand spokesman David Jamieson said for international flights, a woman who is more than 36 weeks pregnant and will be flying for more than four hours must have a medical certificate.
On domestic flights "basically [it is] open but, beyond 36 weeks for multiple pregnancies, a medical certificate is required".
