Filipino Woman gets labor pain mid-air, flight makes an emergency landing at Hyderabad Airport

Hyderabad, May 2019: A team of gynecologists and pediatricians from Apollo Cradle, Jubilee Hills facilitated an in-flight delivery of a baby and transferred the mother and baby with the umbilical cord intact to the Apollo Cradle for further treatment. A Philippine Airlines Flight en route to Manila from Riyadh requested for emergency medical attention for a Filipino lady in labor pain and made an emergency landing at RGIA Hyderabad. After the delivery in wee hours of May 8, the mother and the baby with umbilical cord intact were shifted to Apollo Cradle, Jubilee Hills.

The Due date of the woman, who was in the 36th week of her pregnancy and reportedly works in Saudi, was three weeks away.

A team of three doctors and two nurses from Apollo cradle, Jubilee Hills, who received distress calls at around 2 a.m, reached the airport before the landed. The doctors said by the time they rushed into the flight, the woman was in an advanced stage of labor. They performed the delivery in the space behind rows of seats.

It was a challenging delivery for the Apollo doctors as everything the doctors needed for the delivery were not allowed into the flight for security reasons such as blades and scissors. Doctors said that we could not completely separate the placenta and the umbilical cord either. After the delivery, the mother and the baby were shifted to the hospital in the Ambulance, Dr. Archana Reddy said, adding that there was no scope for the woman to be shifted from the flight to a hospital or into the airport before delivery.

C. Suresh Kumar, head of the department of pediatrics and Neonatology, Apollo Cradle, Jubilee Hills, said Medical support was provided to the baby, who is fit to travel.