Silke Jasso
The crew of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower is usually hard at work, securing the seas and working to defeat ISIS. But they had a new job Sunday: labor and delivery.
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A third class petty officer from Carrier Air Wing 3 checked into the Persian Gulf carrier’s medical clinic with stomach pains. Nine hours later, she delivered a healthy baby girl.
Navy Times reports neither the mother — who has not been identified — nor her command knew she was pregnant before Saturday, when she first felt the pains.
“Both the mother and the baby are healthy and are doing well,” 5th Fleet spokesman Cmdr. Bill Urban said.
Usually, service members have to leave an operational command 20 weeks into pregnancy and would definitely not deploy. When it became clear the sailor was in a labor, diapers, formula and an incubator were flown to the ship. The mom was in the right place at the right time. The family practitioner who delivered the baby is certified in child birth.
“As the baby was born at sea aboard an operational unit, the main focus for the U.S. Navy, the ship and its crew is the safety and well-being of the baby and the mother,” Urban said in an email.
The mother and child were flown by helicopter to Bahrain, where they were taken to a local hospital.
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“While it would have been preferred to send her to her homeport earlier, per policy, we are now focused on caring for the health and welfare of our sailor and the newest member of our Navy family,” Urban said.
