I Had No Idea How Awesome Jessica Alba’s Birth Story Was Until I Saw The Picture Of The ‘Baby That Didn’t Know It Had Been Born’
The story of the “baby that didn’t know it had been born” blows my mind for so many reasons I don’t even know where to start — it’s the same as Jessica Alba’s birth story (huh?), a doctor in Greece posted his experience on Facebook (what?), and all I can think is how freaking lucky this mother is because my water breaking was like the gates of hell opening to swallow me whole.
The “baby that didn’t know it had been born”, as the Daily Mail is calling it, was delivered with its amniotic sac intact.
The amniotic sac is a bag of fluid inside the womb where the unborn baby develops and grows. It is also referred to as the ”˜membranes’, because the sac is made of two membranes called the amnion and the chorion.The sac is filled with clear, pale fluid, in which the unborn baby floats and moves.The amount of amniotic fluid increases gradually during pregnancy until about week 38, when it reduces slightly until the baby is born.
Basically this means the mother’s water never broke and at birth the baby still behaved as if it was inside its mother’s womb – because that’s the way it felt. The baby would only begin to breathe on its own once the sac was ruptured.
If the story sounds at all familiar, it’s because Jessica Alba told OK! about her “intact sac” story (as I’m calling it) during the vaginal birth of her second daughter, Haven.
”When I delivered Haven she was born still inside the amniotic sac, which is rare,” the Valentine’s Day star, who also has daughter Honor with her husband Cash Warren, reveals. ”The doctor had never seen anything like it before. He grabbed the nurse and said: ”˜Look at this!’ I was in the middle of pushing and he told me to hold on a minute and not to push! He was wearing basketball shorts and a T-shirt and said: ”˜Oh I have to get my scrubs on for this!’ The sac burst on its own after she came out. It was a trip.”
The experience actually inspired Haven’s name, Jess says. ”When I was in recovery we still hadn’t chosen her name. Cash picked her up and said she came into the world in her ”˜safe haven’ and it clicked right then for both of us”¦”
Did you see that picture? She doesn’t do this birth story justice! That might be one of the craziest coolest things ever. Let’s just say Jessica Alba is a terrible descriptive storyteller and move on.
The intact sac phenomenon is rare, but not as rare as someone capturing it for all the world to see, which is exactly what obstetrician Dr. Aris Tsigris did after delivering such a newborn via caesarean section in Amarousion, Greece. He snapped the pic and immediately posted it to his Facebook page. I wonder if that is in his standard release form. “You are here to have a C-section, you will get anesthesia, I may take photos to post to Facebook, blah, blah other legal mumbo jumbo here.” I hope the mother consented, because if I were laying on an operating table and the doc whipped out his smartphone and started sharing on social media, I don’t think I’d be so cool with it.
Maybe she was just so happy her water didn’t break while she was in labor that she didn’t care about the photo share – and that I could understand. I was hoping for a natural delivery with my second child, but when my water broke I really didn’t think I was going to make it. What started as manageable pain sent me screaming my head off. I had also gone from four to ten centimeters dilated in 45 minutes after the membranes ruptured. Thankfully it went very fast, but for the chance to miss out on that part of my labor, I would have let my OB share a couple of photos — maybe even a complete video — on Facebook.
(photo: Facebook)
