What Happens If You Go Into Labor On A Plane?

If you go into labor on a plane, flight attendants can actually do very little to help you. (Photo: Mliu92/Flickr)

days ago a woman gave birth to a healthy baby girl during a transatlantic flight from Jordan to New York’s JFK.

According to news reports, a nurse and a doctor aboard the plane helped deliver the baby mid-flight, and mother and daughter were handed over to medical staff on the ground upon landing and taken to a nearby hospital.

In-flight labor is actually more common than you would think.

In December a Southwest flight from San Francisco to Phoenix was diverted to LAX after a passenger went into labor midflight. And again the baby was born onboard the plane.

MedLink’s Global Response Centre in Phoenix, which provides assistance via phone to airline staff dealing with in-flight medical events, dealt with 27 in-flight labors from 2006 to 2008.

But in relative terms, that is only a very small portion of the 55,000 total medical emergencies the service was involved in over the same period. So what happens if you go into labor at 30,000 feet?

First, there is actually very little protocol for flight attendants to deal with a woman going into labor onboard.

Airlines advise against flying beyond the 36-week mark, but they can’t actually prevent you from doing so. (Photo: Thinkstock)

Airlines set individual regulations about how late into the pregnancy a woman is allowed to travel (usually 36 weeks) but unfortunately, the choice to fly is at the discretion of the passenger, who has the ability to conceal the stage of her pregnancy.

“Flight attendants are NOT trained to deliver babies,” says veteran flight attendant and author James Wysong. “We are required to watch an antiquated black-and-white video on the birthing process in case a baby happens to arrive aboard one of our flights.”

“The only thing I learned from the training was to make a call for a medical professional to come forward and hope that one would,” Wysong continued.