Baby born in ambulance on the side of the road.
Last Friday, a woman who was 40 weeks pregnant gave birth inside an ambulance on the side of the Via do Infante (A22) highway, on her way to Portimão Hospital. That night, the obstetrics emergency room at Faro Hospital was closed .
According to Correio da Manhã, the pregnant woman had been at the health unit that same afternoon, but was sent home. Hours later, she began to feel contractions and her partner ended up calling for help from the INEM base in Loulé. The baby was born in the ambulance, about five kilometers from the hospital.
According to data from the National Institute of Medical Emergency (INEM) sent to Lusa, by mid-September of this year , 32 births had already been recorded in ambulances – a figure that exceeds the annual total for each of the three previous years.
In 2022, 25 births were recorded in ambulances, in 2023 there were 18, and in 2024, 28. To these numbers are added two recent births assisted by the Moita Fire Department, raising the total number of cases outside the hospital.
Considering all births in a pre-hospital setting (ambulances, public roads and homes), INEM recorded 154 between the beginning of the year and mid-September. In previous years, the figures were slightly higher: 169 in 2022, 173 in 2023 and 189 in 2024, with the majority occurring at home.
According to the National Institute of Statistics (INE), in 2024 there were 84,059 births in Portugal.
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