A 43-year-old woman who went to hospital to be treated for severe abdominal and back pain that she thought was kidney stones was shocked to find she was pregnant, and a short while later gave birth.

The woman’s bizarre discovery that she was pregnant without knowing started when she thought she was suffering from a kidney problem based on the fact that she had a history of kidney stones.

Josiane Resende, who at 43 had apparently not considered that she could be pregnant, was admitted to A&E in the town of Ararangua in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina with suspected renal colic.

However, she swiftly discovered she was actually pregnant when she went to the health facility’s bathroom while she was awaiting screening and her waters broke.

On-duty doctors and nurses assisted her as she gave birth to a healthy baby boy weighing 2.2 kilogrammes (4.9 lbs). Both mother and son were then taken by ambulance to the Hospital Regional Deputado Afonso Guizzo, also located in Ararangua.

The medical staff who assisted in the delivery told reporters that the woman was admitted to A&E at around 7.30 am and that the emergency birth took place at 8.13 am.

Both mum and son were still being kept in hospital and both were reported to be doing well at the time of writing.

The phenomenon of a woman carrying a baby to term without knowing she is pregnant is known as ‘cryptic pregnancy’, with a 2002 paper published in the British Medical Journal estimating that it occurs in about one in every 2,500 pregnancies, as reported in The Guardian in March 2019.