Soldier has baby in army base hours after Taliban attack

The woman, who is originally from Fiji, had a healthy son at Camp Bastion on Tuesday.

Both mother and baby are in a stable condition and will be flown home in the coming days.

A specialist medical team from the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford is due to arrive in the Helmand Province base to help take them home.

The birth took place just four days after the camp, where the bulk of the UK’s 9,500-strong force is deployed, was attacked by Taliban insurgents who destroyed six aircraft and killed two US Marines.

An MoD spokesman said: “We can confirm that on September 18 a UK servicewoman serving in Afghanistan gave birth in the Camp Bastion Field Hospital to a baby boy. “Mother and baby are both in a stable condition in the hospital and are receiving the best possible care. A specialist paediatric retrieval team is being prepared and will deploy in the next few days in order to provide appropriate care for mother and baby on the flight home.”

The spokesman added: “It is not military policy to allow servicewomen to deploy on operations if they are pregnant. In this instance the MoD was unaware of her pregnancy. As with all medical cases, when the need arises, individuals are returned to the UK for appropriate treatment/care.”

According to the Daily Mail, the woman served as a gunner with the Royal Artillery, and had been deployed with the 17th Mechanised Brigade since March.

The newspaper said she only discovered she was pregnant after she went to medics complaining of stomach pains, and the baby was born five weeks prematurely.

A military expert called for more rigorous checks on women going to frontline duties to ensure they are not pregnant because of the risks to their welfare.

Major Charles Heyman, an author of books about the British Army, said he understood a simple urine test could have disclosed the woman’s condition.

Belinda Phipps, chief executive of the National Childbirth Trust, said it was unusual for a woman not to know she was pregnant until the last minute. But she said that being in such a stressful situation as an operational tour in Afghanistan could take a woman’s focus away from her body.

“Most of us put on two or three stone (28-42lbs) while we are pregnant and by the end of pregnancy feel very much as though it is dominating our entire being, so it would be hard to get to the later stages of pregnancy and not realise it,” she said.

“However, the symptoms of pregnancy vary in their intensity from one woman to another and bump size can also differ a lot. If you are young or in your 40s when the pattern of your periods may vary and you may be experiencing other physical changes, it is easier not to realise you are pregnant.”