A mother has shared the unusual and “traumatizing” birth experience she says she will never forget after unknowingly giving birth while she was asleep.
Carolina Moreno, a 27-year-old Canada-based mother of three, recently went viral on TikTok after revealing that she wasn’t awake when she delivered her youngest child, who is now three months old.
In the now-viral video, Moreno explained that when she arrived at the hospital for an induced labour, she tested positive for Group B Streptococcus (GBS), a common bacterial infection that required doctors to administer antibiotics before breaking her water.
Unlike her previous two pregnancies, which involved much longer labours, Moreno said she was already three centimetres dilated and her cervix had thinned, prompting medical staff to begin antibiotics immediately.
A few hours later, nurses broke her water and started administering Pitocin, a medication used to stimulate labour.
Moreno recalled feeling “really uncomfortable” because her baby was not in an ideal position, prompting her to request an epidural.
Although the epidural was administered, she said she didn’t initially feel any relief. After waiting about an hour, she pressed the button for additional doses three times before finally becoming comfortable enough to fall asleep.
At the time, her husband, Jorge Carrera, along with her sister and cousin, were in the delivery room.
While Moreno slept, nurses periodically entered the room to monitor the baby’s heartbeat.
“The alarm went off on the monitor, which happens when the heartbeat isn’t found, so my nurse came in to find it again,” Moreno told PEOPLE. “This had happened several times. My baby was very active and liked to move.”
“Sometimes I’d adjust myself and accidentally move the monitor, so we weren’t overly worried when she initially came in, and I was still pretty asleep,” she added.
However, as more time passed without the heartbeat being detected, Moreno became alarmed.
“I started to get worried because obviously she wasn’t finding him. That’s when I really woke up,” she recalled.
As the nurse continued searching for the heartbeat, panic quickly set in.
Moreno said she asked whether she should lie on her back, and the nurse agreed.
“When I turned onto my back, her hands were still on my stomach, and that’s when she pointed out that my stomach felt really weird,” Moreno said in her TikTok video.
“In that moment, I don’t know why, I just thought, ‘My baby’s dead.'”
As she tried to move her legs, Moreno said she felt something on the bed beneath the blankets.
“I swear I thought it was going to be my placenta or that my uterus had come out. I never thought it was going to be my baby,” she recalled.
The nurse then lifted the blanket and discovered Moreno’s newborn son lying face down beneath the covers.
“He was face down. He wasn’t crying. And I just panicked,” Moreno said.
“Obviously, you see a baby who’s not crying and has probably been there for several minutes under blankets and under you. That’s everything a newborn shouldn’t be. So I was really scared. I didn’t think he was alive.”
The nurse immediately picked up the baby and began rubbing him until he cried.
“I was screaming,” Moreno recalled. “I screamed at my husband. He thought he had missed the birth. He just didn’t realise we all missed the birth.”
Although the baby soon began crying, Moreno said she struggled to process what had happened and described the experience as deeply traumatic.
Reflecting on the birth, Moreno told PEOPLE that discovering her son under the blankets was a tremendous shock.
“It was a huge shock to find him under the blankets,” she said. “It turns out he was sleeping, and he’s just a very chill baby. Even now, you lay him down and he falls asleep. He’s just not a crier.”
She added that the baby had essentially delivered himself before anyone realised.
“The nurse didn’t deliver him; he delivered himself,” Moreno said.
“We had no idea he was even out, which is what made it so scary. They couldn’t find his heartbeat because he wasn’t inside me anymore. We just thought something horrible had happened.”
Now three months old, Moreno says her son is thriving.
“I feel very lucky,” she said. “He’s absolutely amazing and was born in perfect health.”
“He’s also our easiest baby, and the adjustment has been seamless.”
Despite the frightening experience, Moreno says looking back now helps put things into perspective.
“It was incredibly scary finding him on his stomach under the blankets, not crying. But now that we know his personality, it really makes sense. He’s just the calmest baby.”
