A Woman Gives Birth While Taking A Nap

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

This article was originally published on HelloGiggles.com.

Taking a nap while giving birth to a baby may sound like a dream to some, but when it happens unintentionally, it's probably not as exciting. One woman had a nightmare birth story that sounds both incredible and heart-wrenching at the same time. Because while missing the pains of labor sounds amazing, missing your baby's birth does not.

Here's what happened: Alice Payne went to an Ashbourne, Derbyshire hospital in the UK to give birth to her son. The doctors didn't realize how close Payne was to actually giving birth, because the contraction monitor was malfunctioning. So they gave her some medication that would allow her to rest for a while until it was time to push.

Unfortunately, she was already 10 centimeters dilated when she fell asleep. Whoopsie

So by the time she woke up from her nap, her baby boy was almost completely out.

Payne told the Daily Mail that she was medically induced at 38 weeks and the doctors were "amazed" to watch her push out the baby while literally taking a nap.

"Because the contraction monitor wasn't reading me properly, doctors didn't realize that I was as far along as I actually was," Payne said. "So I was given some drugs to let me nap for a couple of hours, but thirty minutes later they realized I was ready to push."

Doctors were giving Payne Syntocinon, a hormone to induce labor, every 30 to 60 minutes, because the malfunctioning machine read that her contractions weren't intensifying.

Because she was in such a relaxed state (AKA napping), Payne almost needed a C-section

Thankfully her body responded to her husband's voice telling her to push, which is something the doctors and nurses had never seen before. She woke up for 10-15 minutes of the delivery, but then fell right back sleep after the baby was born.

"Though I'm pleased I missed the pain of labor, I do wish I had been more present for my first baby's birth," Payne said. “Now when he's older and asks me, I'll have to tell him I nodded off.”

We totally get it - witnessing the birth of your own child is one of the greatest feelings in the world. But not having to go through the pain of childbirth doesn't seem too terrible.