Foregoing an epidural, a new mom did the seemingly impossible by delivering her baby in 40 seconds flat.
Cianna Gonzalez, 24, only labored for three hours before her son “shot out,” she told Southwest News Serivce.
“I felt him descending. I was screaming ‘he’s coming,'” Gonzalez recalled of the August 2022 birth.
“I did not have to push him out, he came out on his own.”
The Philadelphia mama experienced what is known as the Ferguson reflex, also called the fetal ejection reflex, during which the fetus is expelled from the body without any pushing.
The involuntary reflex occurs as a result of the body’s natural birthing process — oxytocin is released during birth, with the amplified receptors in the uterus triggering contractions that dilate the cervix and push the fetus out of the birth canal, according to Healthline.
However, most women don’t experience a push-less birth, as the fetal ejection reflex is most likely to happen when the mother feels “safe and supported.”
In a hospital, the natural birthing process is interrupted by the beep of machines, check-ins by doctors or nurses and other necessary procedures, which may hinder the reflex.
For the moms who have experienced it, the reflex happens so quickly that they say it is similar to a sneeze — once it starts, it won’t stop.
Gonzalez swears her baby was born in less than 40 seconds after feeling what she initially thought were Braxton Hicks contractions, or false labor pains, only to arrive at the birthing center and discover she was actually in labor.
Gonzalez was laboring in a birth pool when all of a sudden, she knew she was about to give birth.
“I was anxiety-ridden in the moment,” said Gonzalez, who didn’t have time to climb out of the tub to give birth.
“I thought who is going to catch this baby? It was very natural and very fast,” she added, claiming that “being about to relax” triggered the fetal ejection.
Despite this being Gonzalez’s second child, she said did have Ferguson reflex when giving birth to her first son, now 2.
“It was very intuitive on the baby’s end. It was incredible,” she said.
“I didn’t know I could do that or the baby could. He was on his own timing.”