Total Pageviews

British Soldier Gives Birth in Afghanistan

September 20, 2012, 4:13 pm
By CHRISTINE HAUSER

First, there was the news that Prince Harry was deployed there. Then, there was an audacious Taliban attack that killed two Marines last weekend. Camp Bastion in southern Afghanistan has been high profile this month for a number of reasons, and now it is once again in the spotlight for an event that has apparently surprised even its main participants.

After months of grueling training and deployment, a British soldier suddenly gave birth at the Camp Bastion military post this week, apparently not even knowing that she was pregnant. The gunner had her baby boy at a hospital at the camp, which houses mostly British forces as a NATO facility in Afghanistan's Helmand Province, British news organizations reported.

According to a Daily Mail report, the woman, who has not been identified, had gone through training that included an 8-mile march and a 5-mile run before being sent to Afghanistan in March. Once in the country, while pregnant, she had helped provide covering fire for troops fighting insurgents, while serving as a Royal Artillery gunner with the 12th Mechanized Brigade, the tabloid said.

But apparently she was not ready for the surprise appearance that came on Tuesday. After complaining of stomach pains, she gave birth to an infant about 34 weeks into the pregnancy. The birth was complicated and traumatic, The Independent reported.

The frontline birth was the first of its kind in the British military, according to officials. On Twitter, it spawned jokes about possible names for the newborn, and incredulous speculation. As Salma Elwardany, an Egyptian journalist, and others wondered, how could she not have known?

< blockquote class="twitter-tweet">

@S_Elwardany it happens all the time, they just think they're getting fat and have gas.

- forsoothsayer (@forsoothsayer) 20 Sep 12

Anna David, a consultant in obstetrics at University College London, told BBC News that undetected or denied pregnancy “not as uncommon as we think.” An 11-year study in Wales, she noted, showed that one in 2,500 pregnancies was concealed.

It is more common in younger women. There might be all sorts of reasons why one might actually not notice one is pregnant or not want to disclose it. One might be worried about a negative reaction from one's family and either not realize one is pregnant or not notice the symptoms that one might have.

Another BBC report quoted a teacher at the Royal College of Midwives, Sue Jacob, as saying every midwife has come across one or two women who did not know they were going to give birth and who then call for help wh en labor starts. “There are menopausal women, teenagers and very affluent, highly-educated women. No one is immune,” she says.

Another Royal College of Midwives expert, Denise Linay, told The Telegraph that the soldier might've guessed that her periods had stopped due to the stress of being in Afghanistan

A video report from The Telegraph in London quoting an expert from the Royal College of Midwives on how a soldier who gave birth in Afghanistan might have been unaware that she was pregnant.

The new mother was of Fijian descent. People took to naming her baby on Twitter.

International Business Times called the infant simply the “Camp Bastion baby.”

The frontline birth caught the imagination of an Irish illustrator, Eamon O'Donoghue, who drew a parallel with Conan, the fictional warrior, also born on a battlefield, created by the writer Robert E. Howard in stories starting in 1932.

The birth came just a few days after the Taliban had attacked the camp, which is home to the largest number of British troops in Afghanistan. Video posted online by The Telegraph, said to have been recorded by the attackers, showed smoke rising over the base on Saturday.

Video of Camp Bastion in Afghanistan, after a Taliban attack on Saturday.

Another focus for jokes was the coincidence that the birth had come shortly after Prince Harry had begun his deployment at the base, just weeks after making headlines with a game of strip billiards with a group of women in a Las Vegas hotel suite.