{"id":463205,"date":"2026-02-12T00:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T00:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/463205\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T00:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T00:58:09","slug":"21-year-old-british-tourist-visits-hospital-for-stomach-bug-in-australia-gives-birth-hours-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/463205\/","title":{"rendered":"21-year-old British tourist visits hospital for \u2018stomach bug\u2019 in Australia \u2013 Gives birth hours later"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"21-year-old A 21-year-old British backpacker who thought she had a stomach bug was left stunned when doctors told her she was in labour and about to give birth.Hattie Sheppard had been travelling along Australia\u2019s east coast with her boyfriend Bailey Cheadle (22), enjoying beach parties and boat trips during a six-month adventure. But in July last year, the trip took an unexpected turn when she began suffering painful stomach cramps.At first, she blamed a bug and took two paracetamol tablets. When the pain worsened and settled on the right side of her abdomen, the university student feared appendicitis and went to Gold Coast University Hospital in Queensland.An ultrasound revealed the real cause.\u201cI remember turning and looking at the doctor\u2019s face when he was doing the ultrasound, and he just had the most confused face I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d she said.\u201cI asked him what was wrong, and he said there\u2019s a baby. I thought this was impossible as I\u2019m on the pill.\u201cAnd he said, \u2018no there\u2019s a baby coming now, and you\u2019re in labor\u2019.\u201dSheppard said she \u201cdidn\u2019t believe him at first,\u201d describing the moment as the \u201cmost sickening and frightening thing I\u2019ve ever experienced in my whole life\u201d.Just 10 hours later, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl weighing about 6.4lb. The couple named her Isla-Grace Cheadle.Sheppard said she had experienced no typical pregnancy symptoms and had no visible bump. She later learned her placenta had been positioned at the front of her stomach, blocking the baby\u2019s movements. Isla-Grace had been growing near her spine, which explained the lack of a bump.Although it sounds rare, so-called cryptic pregnancies are more common than many realise.In Australia, around one in 475 pregnancies are not discovered until after 20 weeks. About one in 2,500 are only identified at the point of labour. With roughly 5,800 to 5,900 babies born each week in the country, that equates to around two such cases weekly.Sheppard also has Graves\u2019 disease, an autoimmune condition affecting the thyroid that can cause weight loss, dizziness and fatigue, and sometimes make it harder to conceive.\u201cWith my Graves\u2019 disease, it\u2019s a struggle to put on weight, so I had actually had my [medication] dosage increased, and I thought it was working,\u201d she explained.\u201cI used to be quite underweight, but I had got back into eating healthy and going to the gym, so I was actively trying to put on weight.\u201cSo the weight gain I had, I thought was intentional.\u201dIn the months before giving birth, she had gone on a high-speed slingshot ride and celebrated her 21st birthday on a rented boat: \u201cMe and Bailey rented a boat out for my 21st birthday in September. We were jumping off the boat into the water, drinking and it was a standard 21st birthday. Exactly two weeks before she was born, it was New Year\u2019s Eve. My boyfriend and I were on the beach watching fireworks, and we\u2019d been out before that.\u201dThe couple are now preparing to return home to Doncaster, north-west of London, with more than souvenirs from their gap year.\u201cI honestly could not be happier,\u201d Sheppard said.\u201cIt\u2019s the strangest thing that could have happened, but it feels normal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 21-year-old British backpacker who thought she had a stomach bug was left stunned when doctors told her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[215827,215825,215828,97,175750,215826],"class_list":{"0":"post-463205","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-backpacker-pregnancy","9":"tag-cryptic-pregnancy","10":"tag-gold-coast-university-hospital","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-stomach-bug","13":"tag-unexpected-childbirth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}