Woman Gives Birth at BWI Airport Bathroom

The Sunday after Thanksgiving in the United States is typically the busiest travel day of the year, as hundreds of thousands of individuals travel home after the annual Thursday holiday.

 

The Sunday after Thanksgiving in the United States is typically the busiest travel day of the year, as hundreds of thousands of individuals travel home after the annual Thursday holiday. On Sunday, November 27th, 2011 one traveler had an early arrival: the birth of her healthy baby boy in a women’s restroom at Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.

Employees of the airport’s Fire and Ice jewelry store are being credited with assisting the mother during the unexpected labor and delivery. According to reports, a concerned traveler told employees of the Fire and Ice store, located in BWI’s Concourse D, that a woman seemed to be in labor in a nearby restroom. Fire and Ice employees quickly investigated and called the airport’s emergency line at 2:20 p.m., with the baby boy’s birth occurring very shortly thereafter. The airport’s Fire and Ice store manager, Margette Ward, and a Maryland Transportation Authority police officer who responded to the emergency call, assisted the anonymous woman (whose identity has not been made public) as she gave birth to a healthy baby boy.

Emergency officials transported the woman and her newborn son 6 miles to the Baltimore Washington Medical Center in Glen Burnie, Maryland where, according to a hospital spokesperson, they are recovering well and are both healthy. The mother is declining interview requests at this time, and has asked for her identity to remain confidential due to privacy concerns.

Many airlines do not allow women in the third trimester of their pregnancy to fly. Concerns over the health and safety of the mother and her unborn child, in addition to the possibility of a woman going into labor while airborne, have lead many airlines to draft such policies recommending against women taking part in air travel in their 7th, 8th and 9th months of pregnancy. However, hospital officials have declined to share how far along the woman was in her pregnancy when she gave birth in a restroom at Baltimore’s Thurgood Marshall International Airport (BWI).

The expectant mother arrived in Baltimore’s Concourse D on an inbound flight. Airport spokespeople have have not stated whether she is a resident of the Baltimore area or was on a layover at the Thurgood Marshall International Airport. At this time, it is unclear where the woman’s inbound flight had originated before it landed in BWI’s Concourse D. Concourse D currently serves US Airways, United Airlines, JetBlue Airlines, Cape Air, and Continental Airlines.