Tiny Baby Arrives Early – Aboard a Cruise Ship
by Lindsay Whitehurst of sun-sentinel.com
A Utah woman who unexpectedly gave birth on a cruise ship months before her due date says she wrapped towels around the 1 1/2-pound boy and, with the help of medical staff, managed to keep him alive until the ship from Fort Lauderdale reached port.
Emily Morgan, of Ogden, said Thursday that doctors didn’t expect her son Haiden to live, but thanks to strong lungs, a makeshift incubator and an early arrival in Puerto Rico, the baby made it. He’s now receiving care at a neonatal intensive care unit in Miami.
In this Sept. 4, 2015, photo provided by Emily Morgan, a medical flight prepares to leave San Juan in Puerto Rico as Morgan’s newborn baby is transported on the way to Miami. The Utah woman who unexpectedly gave birth on a cruise ship months before her due date says she wrapped towels around her boy and, with the help of medical staff, managed to keep him alive until the ship reached port. He’s now receiving care at a neonatal intensive care unit in Miami. (Emily Morgan via AP).
Morgan, 28, said the baby was due in December, but contractions began Aug. 31 during a seven-day cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Independence of the Seas. Her doctor approved the cruise around the eastern Caribbean to celebrate her daughter’s third birthday, Morgan said.
The pregnancy had been uneventful, so she was shocked when the contractions began just past the halfway mark in her pregnancy. She thought they might be false labor.
But she and her husband called medical staff when they saw blood. A doctor aboard the 4,375-passenger ship told her she couldn’t give birth because they were still 14 hours from the nearest port in Puerto Rico. But holding back wasn’t an option, Morgan said.
“I knew the baby was coming,” she said.
After the delivery, she said the doctors told her she had miscarried and she should get some rest, but she insisted on seeing the baby. About 45 minutes later, medical staff said the baby had survived but wasn’t expected to live.
