The Ministry of Defence will not be bringing in mandatory pregnancy tests for women despite a British soldier who did not know she was pregnant giving birth on the frontline in Afghanistan.
There has been growing pressure for testing servicewomen before they head to the frontline after a Fijian-born British servicewoman had a son in Camp Bastion on Tuesday – just days after the Taliban launched a deadly attack on the UK’s main base in Helmand.
It has also been revealed that 200 women have had to be sent home from Afghanistan and Iraq since 2003 because they have been pregnant.
But this is the first time a UK soldier has given birth to a baby in Afghanistan.
Currently soldiers have hearing, sight, blood and weight-related tests but nothing to find out if they are carrying a baby.
‘No, we will not be bringing in mandatory pregnancy tests. We do not test women for lots of things and believe it really is up to them to come forward if they are pregnant,’ a MoD spokesman said.
‘The problem is that we could test them before they go but they could only produce a positive test weeks later. So we do not do it.
‘There is only about ten cases a year and as soon as they find out we sent them home.’
The baby was born five weeks premature and both mother and child were said to be doing well.
A ‘specialist paediatric retrieval team’ from the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford will travel to Afghanistan in the next few days to provide care for the soldier and her son on their RAF flight home.
The birth has stunned military chiefs and led to calls for extra medical checks on women who are sent to the warzone.
The soldier, a gunner in the Royal Artillery who helped provide covering fire for troops fighting insurgents, was unaware that she was carrying a child.
She had been deployed with the 12th Mechanised Brigade since March, but two days ago complained of severe stomach pains.
To her astonishment, medics informed her that she was about to give birth.
She was in the 34th week of her pregnancy, meaning she conceived before flying to Afghanistan for her six-month tour of duty.
She was taken to Camp Bastion’s £10million field hospital where doctors – who are more used to carrying out amputations and treating bullet wounds – delivered her son.
Despite its location, the hospital is one of the best equipped in the world and has portable X-ray machines, an operating theatre, CAT scanner and an intensive care unit capable of treating up to 20 seriously-ill patients.
A military source said: ‘This has left us completely gobsmacked. You prepare yourself for dealing with war wounded at Bastion – not a mother giving birth to a baby. It is the talk of the camp.
‘This is a very unusual case. The mother deployed not realising she was pregnant and had no idea she was pregnant until she gave birth. She has not done anything wrong.’
Lieutenant Colonel Andrea Lewis, commanding officer of the field hospital, said: ‘This is a unique occurrence, but my team is well-rehearsed in the unexpected and they adapted brilliantly to this situation.
‘I am pleased to report the mother and baby are doing well and we are all delighted at the outcome.’
The Fijian soldier had passed her tough pre-deployment training, which included a gruelling eight-mile march and five-mile run, without an inkling that she was pregnant.
A senior Army insider said: ‘It is bizarre that she didn’t feel some side effects of the pregnancy. She is obviously pretty fit and strong. The strains and demands on soldiers working on the frontline make it surprising she didn’t realise.
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