British servicewoman gives birth to baby boy at Camp Bastion Afghanistan

By MARTIN HALFPENNY
Published on 20/09/2012 10:05

A BRITISH servicewoman has given birth in Afghanistan, not realising she was pregnant.

• Soldier was unaware she was eight months pregnant

• Mother and baby returned to UK after specialist medics sent to Camp Bastion

The woman, who is originally from Fiji, had a healthy son at Camp Bastion on Tuesday. Both mother and baby are in a stable condition and will be flown home in the coming days.

A specialist medical team from the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford is due to arrive in the Helmand Province base to help take them home.

The birth took place just four days after the camp, where the bulk of the UK’s 9,500-strong force is deployed, was attacked by Taleban insurgents who destroyed six aircraft and killed two US Marines.

An MoD spokesman said: “We can confirm that on 18 September, a UK servicewoman serving in Afghanistan gave birth in the Camp Bastion Field Hospital to a baby boy.

“Mother and baby are both in a stable condition in the hospital and are receiving the best possible care.

“A specialist paediatric retrieval team is being prepared and will deploy in the next few days in order to provide appropriate care for mother and baby on the flight home.”

The spokesman added: “It is not military policy to allow servicewomen to deploy on operations if they are pregnant. In this instance the MoD was unaware of her pregnancy.

“As with all medical cases, when the need arises, individuals are returned to the UK for appropriate treatment/care.”

The woman reportedly served as a gunner with the Royal Artillery, and had been deployed with the 17th Mechanised Brigade since March.

She only discovered she was pregnant after she went to medics complaining of stomach pains, and the baby was born five weeks prematurely.

A military expert called for more rigorous checks on women going to frontline duties to ensure they are not pregnant because of risks to their welfare.

Major Charles Heyman, an author of books about the British Army and a former soldier, said he understood a simple urine test could have disclosed the woman’s condition.

“The Army needs to make sure, for the welfare of the female soldier concerned, that they are not pregnant before they deploy.

“I’m not an expert on pregnancy but I’m told that it is easy to tell that a woman is pregnant with a urine test and that should perhaps be looked at before women go out on operations.

“This whole situation does surprise me. Whatever rules you put down, there is someone who slips by to have a baby in an operational theatre.

“This sort of thing makes life difficult for everyone else but the important thing is the welfare of the soldier. This could have gone wrong and we don’t know if the attack on Camp Bastion might have forced the birth.

“I know it’s not a good thing for a woman or the baby to be born there. It’s not like they have a maternity wing. Perhaps the baby should be called Bastion.”

Belinda Phipps, chief executive of the National Childbirth Trust, said it was unusual for a woman not to know she was pregnant until the last minute.

But she said that being in such a stressful situation as an operational tour in Afghanistan could take a woman’s focus away from her body.