A baby girl was born on the side of the A22 motorway on Friday night (October 31) after her mother went into labour while being taken by ambulance to Portimão Hospital.
According to Correio da Manhã tabloid newspaper, the 40-weeks pregnant woman had reportedly visited the same hospital earlier that day but was sent home by doctors.
Later that evening, after her contractions began, her partner sought help at the INEM emergency base in Loulé. A life-support ambulance, staffed by a nurse and an emergency technician, was dispatched to transport her back to Portimão.
However, the woman went into active labour around five kilometres from the hospital, forcing the crew to stop on the roadside and deliver the baby inside the ambulance.
The incident happened on a night when the Faro Hospital’s obstetric emergency ward was closed due to a shortage of doctors, adding further pressure to the region’s strained maternity services.
The baby girl was born healthy and both mother and child were later taken to Portimão Hospital, where they received medical follow-up and were reported to be in good condition.
This is the latest in a long-running series of cases of babies being born inside ambulances in Portugal. Earlier this year, Health Minister Ana Paula Martins admitted the need to cut down on the number of babies born in ambulances on the way to the hospital – around 50 in 2024. While Martins noted that such births have “always” happened and admitted that “it is not possible to avoid it in some circumstances,” she insisted “that is not our goal at all.”
While sudden births can happen in any pregnancy, recent history shows that many of these “ambulance deliveries” are not coincidences. Several women in labour have been turned away from hospitals or forced to travel long distances because maternity and obstetric emergency units were closed due to a lack of doctors, leaving expectant mothers caught between hospitals and at risk on the road.
