Carolina Moreno, a 27-year-old mother from Alberta, Canada, described the unexpected and frightening experience of giving birth while she was asleep. She woke to discover her newborn son positioned between her legs, an event she detailed as "incredibly scary" and "really traumatic."
Moreno had opted for an epidural during labor due to intense, back-to-back contractions. She was given Patient-Controlled Epidural Analgesia (PCEA), a system allowing patients to administer additional pain relief. However, she reported that the medication did not provide immediate relief, and she continued to feel significant pain for over an hour. After alerting nurses, she was advised to press the button multiple times, though she was also given laughing gas and unsure of the exact dosage received. Moreno eventually began to feel some pain relief and, exhausted from a sleepless night of contractions, fell asleep. At the time she dozed off, she was only four centimeters dilated, and she assumed she would wake up when it was time to push.
Her sleep was interrupted around 7 a.m. by a nurse who entered the room because the baby's heart monitor had shown no heartbeat. This had happened previously and was often resolved by adjusting the monitor or the baby's position. However, after several minutes of the monitor showing no heartbeat, Moreno became anxious, fearing the need for emergency surgery. During the nurses' attempts to locate the baby's heartbeat, they noted her stomach felt "really weird." When asked to turn onto her back, Moreno felt something on the bed between her legs. The nurse then discovered the baby.
Moreno recalled her immediate fear, not knowing if the baby was healthy. The infant was found on his stomach and was not crying, which she initially perceived as a dire sign. Fortunately, the nurse acted quickly, retrieved the baby, and immediately helped him cry. Both Moreno and her son were examined and found to be in perfect health. She described her son as a very calm baby who sleeps soundly.
Despite the positive outcome and her son's health, Moreno expressed lingering distress from the experience. She shared feelings of "mom guilt" for missing the birth and the loss of anticipation regarding her son's gender, which they had kept a surprise. Instead of the anticipated joyous moment of meeting her child, the experience was dominated by the urgent need to confirm he was alive and well.