Student Nurse Unexpectedly Gives Birth

Nursing student Lisa Eberts may need to study up on her reproductive biology.

Eberts, 23, didn’t know she was pregnant until she went into labor last week, giving birth to her second child--a full-term, 7-pound, 2-ounce girl--in the bathroom of her suburban Reynoldsburg home. She delivered the baby herself 10 minutes after she began having cramps.

Before that, she had noticed nothing unusual--no illness, no movement of the fetus, no change in her menstrual period.

“I can’t explain it,” said Dr. Terry Grogg, a resident at Mt. Carmel East Hospital, where Eberts and the healthy baby were taken after the delivery. “This is amazing. We get one or two a month where the woman says it was a surprise but usually they are teen-age girls who suspect they are pregnant but are hiding it from their parents.”

Howard Eberts, who was equally surprised, said his wife was still wearing a size 5 dress and was only a few pounds over her ideal weight of 115 pounds.

“I’d noticed a little weight gain but it wasn’t enough to mention and get smacked over,” he said.

Lisa Eberts said she was close to shock when the baby came. She kept enough of her wits to put to work the training she is receiving at the Mt. Carmel School of Nursing.