The 18-year-old who didn’t know she was pregnant until she was already in labour

A US teenager has told how she only discovered she was pregnant when she was already in labour.

Bri Blanton, 18, rushed to hospital in September last year when she woke up doubled over in pain.

When she arrived at hospital, the teenager was told her waters had broken and that she was 5cm dilated - despite having no idea she was pregnant.

Ms Blanton - who had no obvious pregnancy symptoms and even had a negative pregnancy test months earlier - gave birth to her little girl Oakleigh just two hours later.

The nanny, who is from the upstate of South Carolina in the US, said she was in “complete shock” when she found out she was having a baby.

She said: “I woke up early and thought I had wet myself. I was doubled over in pain.

“When they told me I was pregnant and giving birth I was in complete shock.

“I kept saying to my mum: ‘This isn’t possible.’

“They put her on me after she was born, and my mum said I looked like a deer in the headlights looking at her.”

She added: “It took me a good four hours after she was born to calm down.

“I told my friends I’d had a baby and they were like ‘but you weren’t pregnant last week.’ They couldn’t believe it.”

The drama began when Ms Blanton woke up at 4.30am on September 8 2022, with water all over her mattress. She thought she had wet the bed.

But, when she felt pangs of pain, she rushed to get her mother’s help.

“I was freaking out,” her mother Jennifer Blackwell, 36, said. “I had no idea what was wrong with my kid.”

The pair went to Spartanburg Medical Centre, Spartanburg, South Carolina, US, and Ms Blanton explained her symptoms to a nurse.

“The nurse asked if she could check Bri’s cervix,” Ms Blackwell said. “Then the nurse looked at me really eyes wide and said: ‘She’s dilated and in labour.’

“I was worried for her because she was about to have a baby that she wasn’t prepared for. We didn’t have anything at home for a baby.”

Oakleigh was born weighing 7lbs 4oz.

Ms Blackwell, a branch manager for a care home agency, said: “To us it was like she went to bed and woke up pregnant.

“But Oakleigh is a blessing. Watching Bri be a mum is really beautiful.”

Ms Blanton says she had no pregnancy symptoms and carried on her active lifestyle - riding, fishing and hunting - unaware she was expecting.

“We bought her prom dress four months before and it fit like a glove,” Ms Blackwell said.

“It still fit perfectly on the day of her prom, but she would have been five months pregnant.”

Ms Blackwell had a hunch that her daughter might be pregnant a few months earlier when she vomited after a heavy meal. She got her daughter to do a pregnancy test but it was negative.

“She’d been in a bikini at eight months pregnant with no bump and even did a negative pregnancy test. We had no idea,” she said.

“She took the test in front of me. It said negative, so I was like ‘phew’. We didn’t think about it again.”

Oakleigh is now four months old and Ms Blackwell is proud of the parent her daughter has become.

“She’s hands down the best mum,” she said.

“Oakleigh has got us all wrapped around her little finger.

“Her facial expressions are everything.

“She smiles and laughs all the time. She’s a very happy girl.”

SWNS