With babies, you have to be prepared for anything. One Pittsburgh mom learned this lesson in a scary, unique way.
Raelin Scurry gave birth to her second child while in her car on the way to the hospital. At 29 weeks and 4 days gestation, the baby came out in one single push, but was still nestled inside its amniotic sac. The sac is a membrane that holds and protects the baby, placenta and amniotic fluids inside the mother’s womb.
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Scurry posted the baby’s birth story and photo to Instagram, sharing that she gave birth to her son on August 5, when he weighed only 3 pounds 1 ounce.
The mom of two says she began having contractions that morning, but because she was 11 weeks away from her due date, she was encouraged to wait at home. As the contractions remained consistent for about 45 minutes, Scurry grabbed some essentials and headed to the hospital. On the way, she realized it was time to push for delivery and called 911.
Just after they called an emergency operator, Scurry pushed and held the baby—fully inside his amniotic sac—in her arms.
When the baby came out, he wasn’t moving. But Scurry, who works in medicine research and knew the sac is a safe place for the baby, rubbed his face and he curled further into the fetal position. As her fiancé and the baby’s father Ean Vanstory drove them to the hospital, the new mom held her boy inside his sac for about seven minutes.
In her Instagram post, Scurry wrote that this rare circumstance—called an “en caul” birth—occurs in about 1 in 80,000 births. Dr. Anna Euser, MD, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at UCHealth echoes this to Cosmopolitan, noting that she’s only seen five en caul births during her eight years of practice.
Euser says that, in most cases, the sac is ruptured with pushing from the pressure of contractions or it’s broken by a doctor to encourage labor. Normally, en caul births happen with c-sections, and the sac is broken immediately to allow the baby to breathe. Once the placenta (which serves as a baby’s source of oxygen during pregnancy) is separated from the uterus, the flow of air stops, Euser says. In this case, she worries whether Scurry’s infant was able to breathe during those seven minutes it took to reach the hospital.
Since Scurry’s August 5 birth to son Ean Jamal Vanity Jr.—”E.J.” for short—she’s shared multiple updates on her miracle baby. On August 30, she shared that he is making solid progress, weighing 4 pounds 3.8 ounces and beginning to feed by mouth.
