UK soldier gives birth in Afghanistan

20 Sep 2012, 10:56 am   -   Source: AAP
Share This
0 
+ Comment
0

A British servicewoman who gave birth while serving in Afghanistan is understood to have been unaware of her pregnancy.

RELATED

A British servicewoman has given birth while serving in Afghanistan, the UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) says.

The woman, who is understood to have been unaware of her pregnancy, had a son at Camp Bastion on Tuesday.

Both mother and baby are in a stable condition and are due to be flown home in the coming days after a specialist medical team from the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford arrives in the Helmand Province base.

An MoD spokesman said: "We can confirm that on September 18 a UK servicewoman serving in Afghanistan gave birth in the Camp Bastion Field Hospital to a baby boy.

"Mother and baby are both in a stable condition in the hospital and are receiving the best possible care.

"A specialist Pediatric Retrieval Team is being prepared and will deploy in the next few days in order to provide appropriate care for mother and baby on the flight home."

The spokesman added: "It is not military policy to allow servicewomen to deploy on operations if they are pregnant. In this instance the MoD was unaware of her pregnancy.

"As with all medical cases, when the need arises, individuals are returned to the UK for appropriate treatment and care."

According to the Daily Mail, the woman served as a gunner with the Royal Artillery and had been deployed with the 17th Mechanised Brigade since March.

The newspaper said she only discovered she was pregnant after she went to medics complaining of stomach pains, and the baby was born five weeks premature.

  • Follow us: 
  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Follow us on Youtube

Join the Discussion

Name
City / Suburb E.g. Artarmon, Sydney
Title
Comment
You have characters remaining.
Validation
What's this?
This is a captcha-picture. It is used to prevent mass-access by robots.
All submitted comments become the property of SBS. They are moderated, so we reserve the right to edit comments and remove HTML tags. Not all submitted comments will be published. Publication does not mean we endorse the opinions expressed. Please read our terms and conditions for more information.