Pregnant Doctor In Labor Delivers A Patient’s Baby

Some working pregnant women are ready for duty at a moment’s notice.

On July 30th, Dr. Amanda Hess, a pregnant obstetrician, was at Frankfort Regional Medical Center in Kentucky to give birth to her second child. She was ready to give birth, but discovered that another pregnant mother, Leah Halliday-Johnson, in the hospital was having complications with her delivery and the on-call doctor still on his way back from break. The baby was arriving much faster than expected and had an umbilical cord around her neck. The delay was painful for Halliday-Johnson and Hess recognized how something needed to be done.

Hess acted immediately. She “put on another gown to cover up [her] backside and put on some boots over [her] shoes” then went to Halliday-Johnson’s room. Coincidentally, Hess had actually seen Halliday-Johnson days before for a check-up. The pregnant OBGYN helped deliver Halliday-Johnson’s baby in “two quick pushes” before returning to her room to deliver her own baby girl eleven hours later. Hess revealed later that she had been working even the day before coming in to give birth and knew that she would be working “to the very last minute” but didn’t expect to be working “to the very last second.”

Halliday-Johnson noted how Hess was in “doctor mode” when she came to help with the difficult delivery. “I appreciate what she did for my family, and it speaks a lot to who she is as a woman and a mother as well as a doctor,” Halliday-Johnson told NBC News. “It makes you feel better, bringing a baby girl into the world, knowing there are women like her willing to step up like that.”

It was all part of the job for Dr. Hess. “Delivering other peoples’ babies is something I do every day….And I’m more comfortable with delivering someone else’s baby than my own, for sure.”