A 24-year-old mother from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Cianna Gonzalez, has disclosed that despite being in labor for three hours, she gave birth to her second child in just 40 seconds.
She went without an epidural and said the baby shot out of her without requiring her to push during delivery. “I felt him descending. I was screaming, ‘He’s coming!”‘ she recalled. “My baby shot out completely voluntarily. I did not have to push him out. He came out on his own,” she said.
Gonzalez’s easy birth is attributed to a rare medical phenomenon known as the Ferguson reflex or the fetal ejection reflex, according to the Daily Mail.
The Ferguson reflex, a natural occurrence, involves the involuntary expulsion of a baby due to heightened oxytocin levels that lead to strong contractions. This phenomenon is more likely to happen when the mother feels safe and supported, and it is more common during home births with fewer medical interventions. Some mothers have described it as a sensation similar to a sneeze, uncontrollable once it begins.
Gonzalez’s first childbirth experience was not as swift as her second but that experience gave her confidence and made her excited to do it again.
When she began feeling contractions while 38 weeks pregnant with her second son, she initially thought they were Braxton-Hicks contractions or false labor pains. But, when she contacted her birthing center and was asked to come, she was surprised when she realized she was already in labor. During labor, while in a birthing pool, Gonzalez suddenly felt the baby coming.
She said she attempted to exit the birth tub to give birth but soon realized there was no time. Despite her anxiety at the moment, her midwife managed to catch her baby as he was born at 10:35 a.m. The healthy baby boy weighed 7 pounds and 5 ounces, slightly less than his older brother, who was 7 pounds and 12 ounces at birth.
The stay-at-home mom attributed her quick and easy birth to the Ferguson reflex. According to her, it might have been triggered by her ability to relax.
She described the experience as intuitive and remarkable, observing that the baby probably was operating on its own terms and timing.
