Woman Gives Birth On Flight With Help Of Firefighters

A flight that departed from Guadalajara, Mexico, landed in Atlanta with one more person than what they had when they took off. One of the passengers on the plane, Liliana Castaneda Avilia, was pregnant, but her due date was on Dec. 23, 2021. However, her little one decided to make an early arrival on Nov. 14.

She and her husband Edgar are from Raleigh, North Carolina, and the couple was only supposed to have a quick layover in Atlanta, but their daughter, Analia Acevedo Castaneda, had other ideas.

An hour into the flight, Liliana started experiencing contractions. There was a nurse on board who rushed to her aid and took her to the back of the plane where she was given oxygen, reports Fox5 Atlanta.

They still had 3 and a half hours left to land in Atlanta, but the nurse told the woman that her baby was on the way. "He was like yeah the baby girl is coming, it's on it's way, and he was like don't try to push, because if you push more the baby will come out, so I held those contractions for like 3 hours and 30 minutes on the way [to Hartsfield-Jackson],” said Liliana.

The pilots contacted the air traffic control to have emergency medical services meet them as soon as they land, and back on the ground, Juanetta Nash and other Atlanta firefighters were getting ready at the airplane's gate, according to CBS 46.

"When we got to the gate, we noticed that the airplane was coming in exceedingly fast. Faster than normal, so we knew it was an emergency, we knew people were nervous,” said Nash, who helped deliver the baby.

When the firefighters got on board, they knew they would have to deliver the baby then and there. "We knew what we were doing, we wanted to make her feel as comfortable as possible, just putting ourself in her shoes we knew that she was already very uncomfortable,” Nash added.

Liliana said that the firefighters helped guide her through the delivery. “They were like okay are you ready to push, I'm like yeah, I'm ready to push, so I just push once and the baby girl came out crying," she said. Analia weighed five pounds and four ounces at the time of her birth.

"One of the flight attendants got on the microphone and she was able to say, ‘hey we have a baby girl! Everybody started clapping. I mean, the pilots were high-fiving. It was a very special occasion," added Nash.

"Thank you to the people that were in the airplane, like the ems the fire department, everybody who helped us," the grateful mom said. The couple even reunited with the firefighters who helped deliver the baby and thanked them. The little one was still in the hospital Tuesday evening, but the new parents said they could bring her back home as early as Wednesday.