New Jersey Woman Who Thinks She Has Food Poisoning Gives Birth to Baby

Stock photo of a baby's feet. (Vitamin/Pixabay)

A New Jersey woman who thought she had food poisoning was shocked when she unexpectedly gave birth to a baby.

Patricia Crawford of Keyport gave birth to a baby boy on March 28, not realizing she had been pregnant, according to News 12 New Jersey.

The birth of the healthy baby boy came as a surprise to Crawford, who experienced what, in medical terms, is known as a “cryptic pregnancy” or a “stealth pregnancy.”

Crawford and her husband, Evan Darragh, have named the baby after Crawford’s late father—William James.

Incredibly, little William James was born exactly one year after Crawford’s father passed away, according to the report.

‘What Are We Even Going to Do?’

Crawford told the news outlet she had been up at night convinced she was suffering from a bout of food poisoning.

“By the time I got back to the toilet area all of a sudden a baby came sliding out,” she told News 12. “It was just like…’Oh my God. What are we even going to do?’”

Crawford said she and her husband were caught completely by surprise and had not made any preparations for the little bundle of joy.

“We [didn’t] have a diaper, a wipe, an outfit, a onesie. Nothing,” Crawford said.

She told the news outlet that all throughout the pregnancy, she showed no symptoms other than the occasional upset stomach.

Patricia Crawford’s Facebook page is filled with comments expressing best wishes, according to the Patch.

“Congratulations, guys! Beautiful story!” wrote one person cited by the news outlet.

“Just saw you guys in News12. Absolutely amazing! My best to all of you,” wrote another.

“Congratulations! I had no idea you were even expecting,” said another person, according to the Patch.

Cryptic Pregnancy

Cryptic pregnancy, known also as “denied pregnancy” or “stealth pregnancy” is a rare phenomenon but, according to Dr. Liji Thomas, can occur as often as in 1 in 475 pregnant women.

“Women with symptoms of denied or cryptic pregnancy may not have the usual symptoms of pregnancy such as nausea, vomiting, cessation of periods, and enlargement of the abdomen,” Thomas writes in News Medical.

One of the factors contributing to cryptic pregnancies is that sometimes medical tests can show a false negative, according to Babygaga. The reason this happens, according to the report, is that the hormone (hCG) that pregnancy tests record may be too low. Women who are on birth control are more prone to reduced levels of this hormone.

Another factor that may contribute to the incidence of a stealth pregnancy is hormonal changes in women who have recently delivered a baby and become pregnant soon after giving birth.

Ultrasounds are not always a reliable indicator, Babygaga notes, as sometimes a technician may not be looking for the fetus in the right place or the embryo may have become implanted irregularly.

Scottish Woman Wakes Up With Surprise Baby Bump, Gives Birth an Hour Later

A Scottish woman who had no idea she was pregnant woke up with a baby bump and gave birth just 45 minutes later, according to local reports.

Nineteen-year-old Emmalouise Leggate gave birth to her daughter, who weighed 7 pounds and 12 ounces, in a Glasgow hospital car park.

She told the Scottish Daily Record she had gone to bed with a “flat stomach” the night before.

“I hadn’t taken a pregnancy test, I had no symptoms, nothing,” she said.

“The doctors couldn’t explain why I didn’t have a bump. They just told me that she must have been sitting in my lower back and that it is quite common.”

But unlike her first pregnancy, none of the tell-tale signs were there. She put her absent periods down to being on the pill.

“I had no bump,” she said, according to the Metro. “I had put on a bit of weight, so my mum was suggesting we go out walking and do different things to burn it off because I kept going on about my weight.”

“The weight was across my full body, more in my arms, legs, and face than anywhere else. My stomach never grew.”

She told the Daily Record that her bump popped up “out of the blue that one morning.”

“I had woken up and you could tell it was a bump. It was dead high up.”

Leggate and her partner described their new baby, Caira, as “the best thing that could have happened,” reported the Metro.

Epoch Times reporter Simon Veazey contributed to this report.