UConn doctor delivers baby right after ER shift — her own baby, that is
Updated: Feb 7, 2022
By Katherine Napier
Special to Today Magazine
A great way for a couple to celebrate Valentine’s Day is with their newborn child. That is exactly what Dr. Natalie Moore and her husband Jake Thibault did this month.
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Moore, an emergency-room physician at UConn John Dempsey Hospital in Farmington, continued to work right through her shift in the Emergency Department despite being in active labor and gave birth soon after, according to UConn Today.
Their first child was born shortly before another recent holiday. When Moore started her 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. shift on Dec. 9, about two weeks before Christmas, she wasn’t feeling well and had started having back pain and pressure.
As her shift continued, she began to experience what she thought were just Braxton Hicks contractions, which some women experience before actual labor — often described as "false" labor pains. However, the contractions eventually occurred regularly every five minutes.
After her shift ended, Moore went to the labor and delivery department as a precaution and was surprised to learn that she was in active labor. This was her first baby and she expected labor to cause abdominal pain, of course, but not back pain.
She called her husband to come to the hospital, and at 3:20 a.m. on Dec. 10 their son, Parker Kyle Thibault, was born at 5 pounds, 12 ounces. They were Farmington residents when he was born.
“It’s such an inspiration that she worked an entire shift and then went on to deliver her son” — Dr. Robert Fuller
While pregnant, Moore wasn’t concerned about working in the Emergency Department during the COVID pandemic.
“I knew that the PPE worked and had faith in it working, and it did — I never got COVID,” Moore told UConn Today. “The hospital is the one place I always felt safest.”
Moore attended UConn School of Medicine and was UConn Health’s first International Disaster Emergency Medicine Fellow.
“It’s such an inspiration that she worked an entire shift and then went on to deliver her son,” Dr. Robert Fuller, the Emergency Department chief, told UConn Today. “It elevates the mood for those who have been exhausted dealing with COVID. Everyone is so proud of her!”
She plans to return to work in the Emergency Department this spring.
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