Cianna Gonzalez, a 24-year-old mother from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, revealed that after being in labor for three hours, she gave birth to her second child in just 40 seconds.
She went without an epidural and reported the baby came out of her without her having to push. “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.
According to the Daily Mail, Gonzalez’s uncomplicated birth is due to a rare medical condition known as the Ferguson reflex or fetal ejection reflex.
The Ferguson reflex is a normal event that involves the unintentional evacuation of a baby as a result of increased oxytocin levels, which cause severe contractions. When the mother feels safe and supported, this occurrence is more likely to occur, and it is more typical with home births with fewer medical interventions. Some mothers have described it as a sneeze-like sensation that is uncontrollable once it begins.
Gonzalez’s first labor was not as quick as her second, but it gave her confidence and made her eager to do it again.
When she first felt contractions at 38 weeks pregnant with her second child, she assumed they were Braxton-Hicks contractions or fake labor pains. When she called her birthing center and was asked to attend, she was astonished to find that she was already in labor. Gonzalez sensed the baby come during labor while in a birthing pool.
She claimed she tried to get out of the birth tub to give delivery but realized she didn’t have enough time. Despite her worry, her midwife was able to catch her son when he was born at 10:35 a.m. The healthy baby boy weighed 7 pounds and 5 ounces, which was somewhat less than his big brother’s birth weight of 7 pounds and 12 ounces.
The Ferguson reflex, according to the stay-at-home parent, was responsible for her rapid and smooth birth. Her capacity to relax, she believes, may have sparked it.
She described the experience as intuitive and extraordinary, noting that the baby was most likely operating on its own terms and at its own pace.