Mom Has Epidural During Birth, What Happens Next Leaves Her Traumatized

Following months of anticipation, Carolina Moreno planned to have a natural birth with her third child, and she wanted every moment to be caught on camera. However, one thing she did not expect was to sleep through the delivery, leaving her entire medical team stunned.

In April 2026, at 40 weeks pregnant, Moreno, who resides in Canada, went into hospital to deliver her third baby. She told Newsweek that her labor was "progressing as normal," and aligned with her previous deliveries. The contractions started to get much quicker, but the baby was not in the right position, making it incredibly uncomfortable for Moreno, 27. As a result, she requested an epidural to ease the pain.

It was part of a patient-controlled epidural analgesia system, meaning Moreno could push a button to administer her own dosage. As time went on, she could still feel everything and continued to push the button for more medication. When that still did not work, she administered the epidural again, estimating that she pushed the button three times in total.

"I was also on laughing gas so it's a little groggy," Moreno said. "I also remember someone said that the machine wouldn't let me overdose because it only lets you dose yourself if a certain amount of time has passed, so I didn't consider that I could make it too strong."

Moreno has a history of long labors followed by fast deliveries, so it was not surprising when she fell asleep at around four a.m. She was still in "a lot of pain," after the epidural was administered.

Hours later, Moreno was woken up by a nurse coming into her room at 6:50 a.m. One of the monitors alerted that there was no fetal heartbeat, so nurses came in to check. At the time, Moreno was still very groggy and remained half-asleep, not realizing what was happening.

She said: "I really didn't think much of it because the baby was low and they had taken a second to find him before. But after about two or three minutes, I started to get really worried that something might be wrong. I didn't want to be negative, but I definitely thought I was going to be wheeled off to an emergency c-section, it was very scary to wake up to."

As she was lying on her side, Moreno hoped that if she moved onto her back, the nurse would have more luck finding the heartbeat. During an assessment, the nurse pointed out that Moreno's stomach felt "really weird," causing the mom to panic that her baby had passed away. While she adjusted her legs to settle into the new position, Moreno felt something on the bed by her legs.

The nurse lifted the blankets to take a look, only to make the most unexpected discovery.

The reason Moreno's stomach felt so unusual was because she had in fact delivered her son in her sleep. There he was, lying face down on the bed, under the blankets, not crying or moving. It is believed that he was lying there for around six or seven minutes, but the exact time of his delivery remains uncertain.

Moreno told Newsweek that it was "terrifying to find him lying on his stomach" silently, but thankfully, he was perfectly healthy.

"The nurse got him crying and did all the things they needed to do, thank goodness," Moreno said. "We think we might know when he was born because my little sister was laying with her head down at the foot of the bed and she heard what she thought was me passing gas. Then the monitor went off and the nurse came in, but everyone was too sleepy to think anything of it."

While Moreno is simply grateful that she and her baby are healthy, she cannot help but feel sad to have slept through the birth. Her previous two deliveries were recorded, and the plan was to capture this one too, but now it feels as though she was "robbed of the moment."

The experience has left her with trauma, and she feels incredibly nervous about any future deliveries. Nonetheless, seeing her youngest son thrive and grow every day is "worth the slight trauma."

Moreno told Newsweek: "I'm obviously sad to have not been mentally present for his birth and there is guilt with that, but the worst was thinking I wasn't going to get to take my baby home. The moment prior to finding him, where I thought he didn't have a heartbeat and then having to immediately process finding the baby was pretty traumatic.

"It was actually amazing to see how fast the medical staff acted, the room filled in seconds and my nurse had him crying so fast. I am so grateful everything turned out OK and we have a really cool story to tell now."

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This story was originally published June 17, 2026 at 8:00 AM.