NSW mum gives birth to baby without knowing she was pregnant

A NSW mother has revealed her shock after she was admitted to hospital with “excruciating stomach pain” – and left with a newborn.

A woman who went into hospital with “excruciating stomach pain” has shared her shock after discovering she was actually pregnant and the baby was in distress.

Emma Fitzsimmons went to the emergency room at Port Macquarie Hospital last Tuesday with severe abdominal pains where doctors performed a scan that revealed she was nearly 36-weeks along.

While she wasn’t in labour, the baby’s heart rate was dropping, so the shocked mum was rushed in for an emergency C-section, where her little girl Willow was delivered without any complications.

Now the NSW woman, who also shares two-year-old son William with partner Aaron, has shared details of her surprise baby – explaining she had “no idea” she was pregnant.

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Emma Fitzsimmons went to hospital with stomach pains and left with a newborn. Picture: Sunrise

“I didn’t notice that I had put on any weight really, I was still wearing the same clothes and they still fit me the same, so yeah I didn’t feel anything at all,” she told Sunrise.

“With William, I found out about him at 11 weeks and I was sick all day everyday until 22 weeks, so it was completely different.”

Emma explained she may not have felt the baby moving as doctors said the placenta could have been at the front, preventing any movement.

However, all that changed when the baby became distressed, causing Emma to have painful stomach pains that prompted her to seek medical help.

“I was getting really bad pains in the stomach and I didn’t know what it was and it was just getting worse,” she said.

“I was absolutely wailing, I was in so much pain.”

She didn’t initially believe doctors who told her she was having a baby. Picture: Sunrise

Once doctors discovered the truth, Emma initially struggled to believe what was happening, before going into panic mode over the situation.

“They did the abdominal scan and saw the spine and that’s when I asked them to have a look again because I didn’t believe it,” she explained.

“I just said to her, ‘I can’t have a baby, we don’t have enough room!”

Emma and her partner Aaron are currently living in a caravan, and Sunrise host David ‘Kochie’ Koch explained the family were “struggling to find a rental property”.

The phenomenon of a woman carrying a baby to term without knowing she is pregnant is known as a “cryptic pregnancy” and is more common than you might expect.

A study published in the British Medical Journal estimates that it occurs in about one in every 2500 pregnancies.

In February, a woman went viral on TikTok for revealing she only realised she was expecting when she gave birth on the toilet.

The medical term for women who don’t realise they are pregnant until they give birth is ‘cryptic pregnancy’. Picture: Sunrise

University student Teagan Brill, 21, revealed she had no idea she was pregnant until she delivered her son herself on February 16, 2021.

Teagan claimed a week before her son Owen’s birth, she had text messaged her then-boyfriend, now-husband, Mitchell Brill, saying that she was “fat or pregnant”.

She had also taken a pregnancy test which was positive – but assumed that she was early in the pregnancy and that the couple – who were in a long-distance relationship at the time – had time to process the news.

Teagan Brill shared her cryptic pregnancy story on TikTok and went viral. Picture: TikTok

On the day that Teagan gave birth, she had stomach cramps.

She assumed that she was having a miscarriage and called emergency services to explain her situation.

As she was speaking to the attendant on the phone, her stomach pain was insurmountable.

The operator said to her: “Breathe, talk through it, talk to me”.

Then Teagan looked down at the toilet bowl and said to the operator: “I think I am giving birth.”

Her story went viral on Owen’s first birthday after Teagan shared it on TikTok, leaving many amazed.