This is a flight one mom will never forget.
Liliana Castaneda Avilia gave birth to a baby girl after going into labor during a flight to Atlanta on Nov. 14.
Avilia, who said she was not due until Dec. 23, was heading back from visiting family in Mexico when she began having contractions, prompting a nurse onboard to help.
“He was like, ‘Yeah, the baby girl is coming. It’s on its way.’ And he was like, ‘Don’t try to push, because if you push more the baby will come out,’ so I held those contractions for like three hours and 30 minutes on the way here,” Avilia told CNN.
Firefighters were summoned to the gate at the airport and rushed onto the plane as soon as they were able to do so.
“The airplane was coming in exceedingly fast, faster than normal, so we knew it was an emergency, we knew people were nervous,” firefighter Juanetta Nash said.
“We knew what we were doing, we wanted to make her feel as comfortable as possible, just putting ourself in her shoes, we knew that she was already very uncomfortable.”
Avilia said the firefighters helped her deliver the baby, named Analia Acevedo Castaneda.
“They were like, ‘OK, are you ready to push?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m ready to push.’ So I just pushed once and the baby girl came out crying.”
“Once she did deliver, one of the flight attendants got on the microphone and she was able to say, ‘Hey we have a baby girl,’ and everybody started clapping,” Nash said.
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