Call the Midwife… Coast Guard Delivers Baby at Sea

Chalk this one up to sh*t you don’t see everyday.

The U.S. Coast Guards says it was called upon Monday to assist with the delivery of a baby aboard a cargo ship about 100 miles southwest of San Diego.

The Coast Guard reports that at about 9 a.m. Monday its dispatchers were contacted by the crew of the Caribbean Highway, a Panamanian-flagged car carrier, requesting assistance for a 21-year-old crewmember who was in labor.

Heeding the call, an aircrew from Coast Guard Sector San Diego transported a Coast Guard flight surgeon and civilian midwife to the ship, who assisted the woman, a citizen of the Philippines, with delivery of a baby girl at 7:50 p.m.

The Caribbean Highway arrived in San Diego at early Tuesday morning and the mother and baby were taken to Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for further care.

According to my unofficial research, the baby was the first to be delivered by a U.S. Coast Guard crew since 2010 when a Haiti earthquake victim went into labor aboard the USCGC Tahoma. Huh.

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