Miracle birth in mid-air, thank Indians

MICHAEL LEVENSON
Boston, Jan. 2: Seems fair to say that the passengers who boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 59 in Amsterdam yesterday did not expect that by the time they landed in Boston seven hours later they would have new faith in themselves, and almost certainly not in the state of humanity.
But as they jubilantly disembarked at Logan, they clapped one another on the back, hugged and talked of life-changing experiences and renewed beliefs in the goodness of people.
“The spirit of America is alive,” beamed Dr Natarajan Raman, a radiation oncologist from Minneapolis.
The reason was the unexpected, and rare, mid-flight birth of a baby girl weighing 3kg named Sasha.
“Everybody was there to help,” said Raman, who helped deliver the child. “People offered baby food, people brought things, people vacated their seats. All I need to let you know is that despite the recession, we’re still progressive in our thinking.”
The baby and her mother, a Ugandan woman, were whisked away to Massachusetts General Hospital, where they were reported to be doing well.
“It’s wonderful,” said Dr Paresh Thakkar, the medical director of the Methuen Health & Rehabilitation Center who also helped with the delivery.
“Happy New Year for everyone in the family! Good Christmas gift for everyone in the family!”
Before the delivery it had been a sleepy, packed international flight, full of exhausted passengers returning from Europe and India. Most of the 124 passengers on board were dozing after six hours in the air.
Then, somewhere over Halifax, the crew made an unexpected announcement: there was a medical emergency. Were there any doctors on board?
Thakkar, who was half-asleep, still tired from celebrating a wedding in India, leapt from his seat. So did Raman, who was returning from his 25th medical school reunion in India. Running to the rear of the plane, they found a woman doubled over, moaning in pain. “She was in distress,” Thakkar said. “She had lots of pain and cramps in her abdomen and so when I examined her she said, ‘I’m eight-and-a-half months pregnant.’”
The flight crew asked Thakkar to make a split-second decision. “They asked me, ‘What do you want to do, doctor? Do you want to land the plane immediately somewhere?’” Thakkar said. “I said, ‘No, let me examine her first. I examined her and the head was coming out. So I said, ‘No, it’s an emergency and we will do it here.’”
Thakkar, a former emergency room physician at Lawrence Hospital, said he was not nervous. “In an emergency you just do what you have to do,” he said.
Thakkar and Raman laid the woman across several seats, while the flight crew ran for a medical kit. Phil Jones and Susan MacDonald, a Danvers couple who were seated one row in front of the woman, grabbed a blanket and held it up, making a curtain for the makeshift delivery room.
“We were the official blanket-holders,” Jones said.
Flight attendants handed Thakkar and Raman rubber gloves, a clamp and scissors, and they delivered the baby in about 30 minutes. She was healthy, with bright eyes and dark hair.
“She looked perfect,” Thakkar said. “She opened her eyes and was very happy.”
The doctors cleaned the girl and handed her to the mother, who was exhausted but overjoyed.
“Thank you very much,” she told the doctors, Thakkar recalled. “We love you.”
When the flight crew announced that a baby had been born on board, the passengers erupted in applause. “Everybody was worried, and they announced that the baby was born, and everybody clapped and then the doctors came back and everybody clapped for the doctors,” said Ashish Nanda, a passenger.
Customs officials deemed Sasha a Canadian citizen, because she was born over Canadian airspace.
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE 

Courtesy: telegraphindia.com