Japanese woman gave birth to baby on train

Tokyo Woman Gives Birth to Baby on Local Train

On the afternoon of January 19, 2018, a 25-year-old woman gave birth to a baby girl on the Joban Line’s rapid service train, which runs through suburban Tokyo in Japan.

A 40-year-old woman from Ibaraki Prefecture was sitting on a priority seat on a rapid service train on the Joban Line. She was with her four-year-old son and they were on their way home from a hospital in downtown Tokyo. Her son was in hospital but had received permission to go home for a few days. Because the train was a rapid service one, it did not stop at every station. After leaving Ueno, a major terminal station in Tokyo, it was supposed to stop at Kitasenju, Matsudo, Kashiwa, then go farther beyond toward Ibaraki Prefecture.

The time it takes to travel from Kitasenju to Matsudo and from Matsudo to Kashiwa is about 10 minutes each. About one minute after the train left Matsudo Station, the woman noticed that the pregnant passenger sitting next to her started looking pale and as though she was in terrible pain. The woman asked her, “Are you okay”?

The pregnant woman said, with a pained expression, “Looks like I’m going into labor. My water is about to break.” (In plain English: “Looks like I’m about to give birth to a baby now.”)

The other woman said to herself, “Oh my God.” It was a critical situation that required immediate action, but they were on a rapid service train and it would be nine minutes until they arrived at the next station, which was Kashiwa. However, miraculously, this woman had experience as a nurse. When people first heard about this, many said, “What a coincidence!” Yet later, in an interview, the woman said she was a nurse at an “ear, nose and throat clinic” and at an internal medicine clinic; she didn’t have experience helping deliver a baby. Another miracle was that because the woman was on her way back from a hospital with her small son, she had two bath towels.

The pregnant woman felt there was no time left and started taking off her pants. The other woman had her lay on one of the two towels and asked another passenger to hold the other towel so that the other passengers couldn't see the scene.

Right before the train stopped at Kashiwa Station, the baby was born, and its crying voice could be heard. The woman who had assisted in the delivery said later, in an interview, that she had found herself doing this almost instinctively. It turned out that she had given birth to five children herself.

When the train stopped at Kashiwa Station, the woman stepped out of the train and shouted, “Don’t move the train! A woman has just given birth to a baby!” Someone pressed the emergency button on the platform at 13:40. Several station staff brought blankets and blue sheets to hide the scene from the public. At 14:11 the woman who had given birth was taken to a hospital with the baby. The train was delayed by 40 minutes.

Both the mother and the baby girl were fine. Later, the mother expressed her gratitude for the people who had helped.

According to JR(Japan Railways), there are no records of someone giving birth to a baby on the train in the past.