The miracle of birth can quickly become a very complicated and confusing affair when delivery room drama starts flaring up. Fights with doctors, peculiar comments, and even partners accidentally leaving the moms going into labor at home are just the tip of the iceberg.
Reddit users shared the most intense, wildest, and weirdest things they’d witnessed in the delivery room after user u/Roach2791 started up a thread on r/AskReddit asking them exactly that. One thing’s for sure, the thread increased our respect for the doctors and nurses who have to keep the situation under control under these extremely emotional conditions, alongside their actual jobs.
If you think that delivery rooms and hospitals are drama-free zones, then these stories are likely to change your mind. Scroll down and have a read, Pandas. Let us know what you think about these situations in the comments. And if you feel like sharing, why not tell us about the bizarre things that you’ve seen as well?
I reached out to Labor and Delivery (L&D) Nurse Holly D. to learn the secrets to staying calm in the delivery room, how medical professionals can keep the situation in control if there’s drama, and how important communication is for professionals and parents.
L&D Nurse Holly stressed how vital it is that medical professionals “remained unbiased and focused on the safety of the patient” no matter the exact details of the situation in the delivery room or the hospital. “Safety in a delivery room for the baby and mother come first above all else. Ensuring your patient is safe mentally, emotionally, and physically during this time is vital. Reminding the parties involved in the drama why we are all here can help diffuse and refocus the energy. We can ask involved parties (not the patient) to leave and return at a later time due to the circumstances of the situation. However, if things become unsafe and nurses are unable to diffuse the situation security will be called,” she told Bored Panda.
You’ll find my full interview with Holly as you scroll down. Meanwhile, you can visit her TikTok and Instagram for her insights about her job.
#1
My great grandmother had 13 children. Somewhere around number 5 or 6 she made it as far as the front lawn of the hospital and gave birth. The next pregnancy she only made it as far as the elevator and was totally mortified. The nurse on staff tried to reassure her by saying “it’s okay, last year someone gave birth on the front lawn.” She had the rest of her babies at home.
Image source: smartblondeva, Robert Linder
#2
Workmate of mine is about to become a dad in the next week. His wife has been getting to know the nurses at their local hospital and listening to some of the stories….
One day a bloke came running down the ward hallway screaming for help that his wife was in labour and they needed the docs to come quickly! The nurses looked around curiously and asked him “ok… so where is she?”
The colour from the bloke’s face drains for a second as he thinks this over…
“OH S**T!” and he legs it out of there.
40 minutes later he returns with wife in tow. In his initial rush, he’d packed change of clothes, the car seat, camera gear, high tailed it to the hospital and left the missus at home!
Image source: anon, Ivan Samkov
#3
A doctor was delivering the baby via ventouse, a vacuum extraction. He was pulling, and you do honestly have to put some muscle into it, those babies are stuck pretty fast in there sometimes. Anyway, the suction cap came off the baby’s head, this happens a lot. The father of the baby thought that the doctor had pulled so hard that he had pulled the baby’s head off, so naturally punched the doctor in the jaw, who went straight down to the ground like a felled tree. Much yelling ensued, people holding the father back, him realising that the baby was fine once we pointed out that the head was still inside, unconscious doctor being pulled into a chair, another doctor coming in to do the delivery, the mother crying hysterically.
We had to have a quick and frantic conversation at the midwives’ station about whether to allow the father to remain in the room. We decided that from his vantage point it may have appeared that the baby’s head had been, uh, removed and that he had a momentary loss of reason. He was also hugely apologetic and took responsibility for his actions. The doctor who got punched took every opportunity afterwards to tell that story as often as possible and we all laughed.
Image source: JaniePage, Jonathan Borba
#4
I gave birth in an emergency room hallway, courtesy of having sudden onset preterm, super short labor. We had JUST moved to a new town and they did not have a full hospital, only a stand alone ER.
So husband goes casually cruising up the freeway on the way to the hospital 30 minutes away and I had a feeling s**t was about to go down, saw a sign for the ER and just screamed at him to pull off.
We get into the ER and they immediately call an ambulance to take me to a hospital with a NICU. Paramedics are literally wheeling me down the hall to the ambulance when my daughter started crowning.
They rounded the corner of the ER to get to an area with some space and the dude in the room right next to us was in cardiac arrest. So this poor ER is completely empty except the screaming pregnant woman birthing a preterm infant in the hallway and the elderly gentleman dying.
My daughter wound up being solely delivered by the 2 paramedics who were transporting me because the ER doc was busy running the code and the 2 nurses on staff were flying EVERYWHERE. They were running in and out of the other guys room with meds and fluid, sprinting around with the baby isolette, etc.
The other patients’ family is clustered in the hallway staring at my gaping vagina while also crying over their dying relative. When my daughter let out her first cry there was a paltry round of cheers from that family and then they all went back to their crying. Meanwhile my husband is curled up in a waiting room chair heavy breathing from light headedness and everyone is ignoring his feeble cries for water. He was literally acting like he was about to die.
In the end no one died, baby was fine, husband passed out, and 5 years later I became a paramedic.
It was 0600 AM, hence the minimal staffing.
Image source: lorabore
#5
This is actually my grandfather’s birth sometime in the 1920s: my great grandma was giving birth at home, on the reservation (Apache), and as the labor kicked in full swing, a crow or raven landed on the windowsill.
Now, this is a bad omen, it means someone is going to die or has died. Needless to say, my great x2 aunts and great grandma’s mother started straight tripping, shooing the bird and whatnot. Bird would not f*ck off, looked at my great grandma and squawked.
Grandpa was born a few minutes later, while someone is trying to get the crow to go away. Crow flies off the minute the baby cries. A few minutes later, someone rode up on horseback to tell everyone that my great great grandfather had passed away about 15 minutes beforehand. That was right when the crow had landed on the sill.
Family legend says that grandpa was his reincarnation.
Image source: TrailMomKat, Kevin Mueller
#6
I was once present at the birth of a very white baby to not white parents. The parents spoke a different language to staff and there was this awkward silence while staff tried desperately not to exchange eye contact or stare at the father for his reaction. After a while, it was obvious that the father either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care, as he looked delighted and was chatting to the mother happily.
Subsequently determined albinism ran in the man’s family.
Image source: Anytimeisteatime, Christian Bowen
#7
Doctor here, I have only ever ‘delivered’ one baby…(sorry for formatting, on my phone)
So I’m in medical school on my obstetric rotation. I’m doing a late night shift cuz I just want to see some births (labor lasts forever, yo). 20s something schizophrenic woman comes in, laboring with her 6th child. Her mother apparently has custody of the other kids, kind of a sad situation. Police had to break her door down because she went into labor and continuously screamed “I’m not giving birth to Satan’s baby! This is Satan’s baby!” The doctor I’m with looks unamused and just says to the nurse “sedate her a bit, we’ll do a c section if she refused to push, etc”. After about 30 minutes and some sedating drugs the doctor tells me to go in and do a pelvic exam and to report to him how far along things are. He went in with me, and then got called out as I’m putting on gloves, saying he’ll be back in a minute. I introduce myself to the patient, explain what I’m doing and start the examination. I feel a contracting sensation and next thing I know a baby’s head pushes my hands out and I’m holding a screaming newborn. I am so in shock I am just staring at the baby and I start to feabily scream, “I, uh, need, uh, some help here!”
Everything was well with the baby and mom. I had to throw away my socks and shoes.
I forgot the best part, where the mother goes, “what’s your name, I’ll name it after you!” It was a boy, I’m female, she insisted I give her my name. I didn’t want to screw up this kids life so I said Henry.
Image source: DrBasia
#8
Baby daddy is so exicited about the birth. We ask mom if she wants to do skin to skin bonding with the baby. She says yes. We go to put baby on her chest and baby daddy rips his shirt off and is stoked to do skin to skin. A for effort dude!
Image source: recycledpaper
#9
This was a nice intense, and for the record, I’m a midwife. In Australia and the UK, midwives deliver the vast majority of babies.
Anyway. there was a woman who was in labour with her fifth child, she and her husband already had four girls. She knew that they were having a boy, but he didn’t (he hadn’t wanted to know the gender). He really, really wanted a boy, not for sexist reasons or anything like that, and I know that he was a wonderful father to his daughters and wouldn’t treat the son any different, but he just wanted a son.
He sat in the corner, reading the paper for basically the whole birth. He wasn’t ignoring his wife or anything, she didn’t want him to touch her while she was in labour, that was just how she went about birthing (she also didn’t want the midwives to touch her, so we stayed as hands off as possible). When the baby was finally born she broke out in a sweaty grin, looked at me and said, ‘Tell him.’ I told him that the baby was a boy and he raced around the bed to give his wife a hug and a kiss and to meet his firstborn son. He was crying and laughing and just absolutely overjoyed by the birth of the baby.
That was a good birth :)
Image source: JaniePage
#10
Oh. Friends a midwife. Baby comes out looking very very Asian to an apparently white couple. Lots of umms and looks.
Turns out that the father was mixed race on his mums side and she never mentioned it.
Image source: paperconservation101, Jason Hutchens
#11
Holy cow, have I got a story for you. I’m not a doctor. This was my husband’s birth in 1944. His mom was in labor in a small town birthing home. It was literally in the local doctor’s home. Mom was in a back room with the doctor and a nurse. My husband’s dad was in the waiting room (living room). The doctor came out and told dad there were complications: he could save mom or save the baby. Dad had to choose. My father-in-law got up, walked out, got a gun out of his truck and came back in. He pointed the gun at the doctor and said both better live or the doctor wouldn’t. Then dad sat down on the couch with the gun in his lap. I’ve tried to imagine that doctor’s state of mind at that moment. He went back into the room with the laboring mother and ended up pulling the baby out with forceps. Mother and baby lived. So did the doctor. My husband’s skull is a testament to this story. It’s like craters on the moon. I’m grateful he’s never gone bald.
Image source: prunepicker, Andrik Langfield
#12
Obligatory not a doctor, but when my nephew was born, he was so ugly my sister didn’t want to hold him, saying, serious as f**k, “put it back in, it’s obviously not ready yet”
She loves him to bits now, but we never let either of then forget it
Image source: woah_dontzuccmedude, Olivia Anne Snyder
#13
Not a doctor but a fire fighter. Got called for a pregnancy, baby already born. Get on scene and mom and daughter (who just gave birth) are arguing back and forth. Mom summed her argument up best with “I told ya you was pregnant”
Image source: Mittens22299, Luma Pimentel
#14
Husband was sitting in the corner playing candy crush on his wife’s phone whilst she was in labour, up popped a text message saying “does he know that it might not be his?”. Shouting ensued and he walked out and left the unit with her crying.
Image source: mzyos
#15
One from a colleague of mine. One woman during her second stage (where you’re cervix is fully dilated and you can push the baby out) started pushing. As she did she passed what has been described to me as an utterly massive, 7.5 couric-worthy s**t, that just kept coming. The midwives had to receive it on a large pad and place it quickly on the nearest place which was the baby resuscitaire, as it was still coming. They then went back to the woman to catch the rest and clean up. As they moved back over to her she panicked and asked “is it breathing?!”. They had to get the husband to tell her it wasn’t the baby she’d passed.
Image source: mzyos, Jonathan Borba
#16
When I was an intern we had a woman who was 8 months pregnant get crushed in a subcompact vs truck collision. Mom was pulseless on scene so EMS brought her in hot (ie, ongoing chest compressions, very unstable). We had about a 60 second warning in the ED to get the OBGYN crash team and the NICU response team down.
It was clear mom wasn’t going to make it. Blunt trauma arrests in the field survive about 1% of the time under the best of conditions. But we had to try to keep her alive so we could do a perimortem C-section to get the kid out. I was on the trauma team, so while I was working on trying to keep mom’s circulation going to perfuse the uterus OB started the perimortem section. We opened the chest to start internal compressions and see if there was an aortic injury we could temporize.
Sections are usually fast; perimortem sections are faster. From skin cut to baby out and over to NICU team was about 45 seconds. They started CPR because baby was severely bradycardic and essentially dead. That’s when we found baby #2. Turns out mom was having twins.
Now, in retrospect in turns out this twin had died in utero earlier and this was a known problem, but we didn’t know that immediately. I joined the impromptou NICU team #2 as we tried to save #2. But it became clear this was futile and we abandoned efforts and turned all our resources to baby #1. We worked on that baby for over an hour but never was really able to get to a stable place. We were able to get the baby to the NICU but unfortunately arrested again and could not be resuscitated shortly after getting there. Likely catastrophic hemorrhage.
The husband and father, who was in the car as well, was physically fine. He had some minor contusions. But when he told him what happened, that he had just lost essentially his whole family, poor man just collapsed. There was no crying, screaming, he just went down like a sack of potatoes. The expression on his face, though, with such immense sorrow and pain and suffering. I will never forget it.
Image source: Fundus
#17
I worked as a hospital parking attendant manning the booth. A car pulled up and the woman was mid way pushing out her baby in the passenger seat. One relative in the back was giving her a back massage, one was fanning her, her kid was playing on his DS, and her husband in the driver seat nonchalantly smiled at me and asked for one ticket all while the mother just delivered her own baby looking calmed like it was a perfunctory task. I didn’t know what to do so I just gave them free parking.
Image source: obeyaasaurus, i8thacookies
#18
The way my dad tells it, part way through labor with me my mum said “that’s it, I’m done, I’m going home” and tried to get off the table. Mum claims not to remember this.
Image source: Purplehairpurplecar, Jimmy Conover
#19
My first baby was born by emergency c-section and spent 5 weeks in the NICU. I wanted to try for a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) with my second. I was given a foley bulb induction at 39 weeks and 5 days. They put the bulb into my cervix and expanded it with fluid, and then it slowly expanded my cervix as it fell out. That took about 12 hours and was quite painful.
Then I was given pitocin, but they cranked it up too high and I was having 6 or 7 contractions in a ten minute period and I was only at 5cm. They tried to turn it down. I got an epidural and was trying to get some rest when my shoulders started to hurt. I mentioned that I wished the epidural was in my neck so I wouldn’t feel my shoulder pain, which I assumed was from lying on my side.
My husband says at that point I passed out as my blood pressure dropped and about seven doctors and nurses rushed into the room. They pumped me full of epinephrine and stuff. They thought I was having an amniotic embolism or a heart attack. I got rushed to a c-section.
I remember thinking, as they were pushing me down the hall, that the movies get it totally right. The lights on the ceiling did that streaming by thing they show in movie scenes.
They opened me up to discover that my uterus had ruptured and my baby’s hand was coming through into my stomach cavity, which was full of blood and amniotic fluid. It was quite gruesome.
Baby was fine, but my husband was convinced I was going to die. I didn’t, obviously.
I was bitterly disappointed about not doing a VBAC and I’ve had people ask me why I “chose” to have a c-section many times. It has really done a number on me emotionally.
Image source: Doc_Chickeneater
#20
The baby’s father was caught cracking open the anesthesia cart and stealing meds. When police officers came to arrest him, he was sobbing and kept saying over and over “y’all aren’t going to let me see my baby be born?” and the officers were both like um nope should’ve thought about that before
Image source: okitay, National Cancer Institute
#21
Ambulance officer here.
Got dispatched to “17 year old female, difficult pregnancy. Caller statement: Baby born, didn’t know was pregnant. Can’t find umbilical cord.”
Whooooa boy…
Get there, healthy baby girl born. Mother and grandmother sitting on floor, blood everywhere. Both emotionally shocked. Umbilical cord right where it should be. Grandmother holding baby, outstretches arms and hands me the baby without words while my partner checks out mum.
Grandma comes to me and just says “I thought she was a virgin!”
Mother had texted grandmother while at work to say “Mum, come home, I’ve had a baby.”
The tension in that room… Holy cr*p.
Image source: Turborg, camilo jimenez
#22
When I was having a c section I was jamming out to Journey looped on the epidural. I noticed that people started walking around carefully and my husband turned kind of green, but everyone’s response was “it’s okay, you’re doing great, baby’s great, just finishing up!”
Only after I was in recovery did they tell me the end of the suction tube came loose and sprayed blood all over the floor and everyone was covered in it and leaving bloody footprints everywhere. Lol, good times.
Image source: ButterCoookies
#23
Father broke down, started yelling at his wife that they can’t afford it. She flushes red with anger and embarrassment like “NOW you think is a good moment to bring this up to me? You want me to go back in time for you?” Older child, like 5-6, was in the room too, staring and looking terrified. I tried to calm the father down and he just stormed out. I was delivering a pizza though, not a baby.
Image source: 1-800-SUCKMYDCK, Candace McDaniel
#24
Mom doesn’t want to push because she doesn’t want to poop. I tell her she better get used to poop because that’s what babies do. She pushes and a giant turd comes out, then baby. Then baby poos on the floor as I’m handing him off. Supervising doc asks me why the room smells like s**t.
Image source: recycledpaper, Janko Ferlič
#25
When I was a nursing student doing my OB rotation, a group of us watched our first delivery. There was no time to do an epidural because the baby was ready and he wasn’t waiting.
After the baby’s delivered, the first thing the dad says is ‘You can rub it my ex’s face that you did it natural.’
It wasn’t a huge dramatic thing but everyone in the room just kinda looked at each other. Like buddy, your son was just born and you’re more excited to one up your ex?
Image source: NoNotTom_Sawyer, César Abner Martínez Aguilar
#26
Im a doctor but this is not my story. There was this couple who were gonna birth their first. The father though had already a child from a previous marrige. So when it was time for labour, instead of being supportive and calm and leaving it to the proffesionals. The father went bats**t and started screaming ”my previous wife wasnt in this much pain, something is wrong”. That is excactly what a woman in labour would like to hear
Image source: Xyzar, RODNAE Productions
#27
Not a doctor but security guard outside delivery room. I just remember cracking up(wtf moment) as one lady was screaming she would not have her baby born on Hitler’s birthday.
Image source: Furzball, Tim Bish
#28
My parents took those birth classes and were ready to go natural, but had the anesthesiologist on standby. After some pretty bad contractions my mom gave in and asked for the epidural. My dad went and talked to the anesthesiologist, came back and whispered in my mom’s ear “he said it’s 500 for it. In cash”. Another contraction came through, and along with it a crack opened on the earth’s crust and my mom screamed “FIND A F**KING ATM”.
Image source: 9gagWas2Hateful, freestocks
#29
Not a doctor but am a midwife. We do home delivery in the US. One labor mom was on the bed just working through the contractions. Dad was sitting next to the bed looking at p*rn. I gave him a look and he knew I caught him. No remorse just angled the screen better. Later on same Dad was just slamming shots and beers. After baby was born he refused to put on the first diaper or hold his daughter. We needed to transfer the baby in due to some blood sugar issues. I go find his drunk ass playing video games in the kitchen. I told him we needed to go in. He was so pissed off he said now?!! Its three in the morning. Yeah dude now. I drove the car because he was so wasted he couldn’t even stand. Lots more but thats one of the worst.
Image source: nightinthewild, Tima Miroshnichenko
#30
Wife just gave birth and we asked that same question to our nurse. She told us about the time a guy brought in his pregnant wife and his pregnant girlfriend. The doctors thought that they were going to try and kill each other so they kept them on separate floors. All the nurses thought the guy was a complete and utter douchebag.
Image source: Frankfusion, rosemariesully
#31
Baby daddy and baby grandma are in delivery room. We’re setting up the table to deliver and cheerfully ask “okay dad, want to cut the cord?”. Baby daddy loses his s**t “not if this she devil is in the room” and points to baby grandma. They get into a yelling match and meanwhile the patient and I make awkward eye contact and while the nurse and the other resident try to calm them down, we deliver the baby and I cut the cord.
Image source: recycledpaper, Jonathan Borba
#32
Mom’s cousin is with her as she rolls in at 9 cm with her 3rd kid. She’s snapchatting pictures of herself posing next to mom who looks very uncomfortable. We deliver baby whom she deems her “sexy lil nephew” MA’AM HE IS FIVE MINUTES OLD.
Image source: recycledpaper, cottonbro
#33
Not a doctor, but my (now ex) mother in law got mad because I didn’t want anyone in the delivery room other than my husband so she ran around the hospital hiding. (Now ex) Husband almost missed the birth because he was too busy trying to find her and calm her down.
Image source: Greigebaby
#34
Mom asks if the baby is mixed….in front of baby daddy who is the same race.
Image source: recycledpaper, Jimmy Conover
#35
I know my mom punched a nurse and my dad when she was giving birth to me, they had to restrain her. No wonder I turned out the way I did.
Image source: Red-Rover-Red-Rover, Sharon McCutcheon
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