'I didn't know I was pregnant until I gave birth'

A woman who did not realise she was pregnant has described giving birth alone at the beauty parlour where she worked before cutting her baby's umbilical cord with eyebrow scissors.

Bryony Mills-Evans said she did not think she wanted children, but was thrust into motherhood at the age of 23 despite having no pregnancy symptoms.

Cryptic pregnancies, where a woman is unaware they are pregnant until late on, or as in Bryony's case, when in labour, have been described as "rare, but not exceptionally rare" by one midwifery professor.

After recently discovering little was known about such pregnancies, Bryony has decided to raise awareness so others who have experienced something similar know they are not alone.

A study has suggested there are about 325 of these surprise births in the UK every year.

The beautician was in work in Newtown, Powys, on the day she gave birth, and after finishing with her last client felt what she thought were just menstrual cramps.

"I had tight leggings on so I went on the beauty bed in the back to take them down because I thought that might ease the pain," she said.

"Within 10 minutes of lying there her head had come out.

"I thought I'd just gone to the toilet, looked down and saw her head."

Bryony instinctively started to push and gave birth to her 6lb 14 oz (3.1kg) baby girl, Willow.

"I didn't really know what to do. My phone had died and was in another room, so I just lay on the bed for a bit," she said.

"After a while I noticed her umbilical cord had started going white. I had eyebrow scissors next to me, not that I know anything about babies, but I cut that with them and wrapped her up in loads of towels."

Bryony, who has since had a second baby, then dashed to charge her phone before heading to the toilet.

"I didn't know that your placenta has to come out. I think maybe I freaked more with that because I thought it was another baby," she recalled.

After calling 999 Bryony was sent to hospital.

While being asked questions by paramedics en route, she said she texted her mum something along the lines of "I've just had a baby, not to worry, we're both fine," before asking if she could meet her there.

"I don't think I held her until the next morning," she said.

"I was definitely freaked out because I was only 23 and didn't think I ever wanted any kids."

Bryony said it was only when her mum suggested she named her new baby that she began to calm down a bit.

"It was a shock. Everyone always says to me 'you must have been petrified'.

"I don't really remember being petrified, it's just one of those moments where you just get on with it because you don't really have another choice."

Bryony said she had none of the tell-tale symptoms you would expect if you were pregnant - including a baby bump.

"When people ask 'how could you not know?' I always say 'if you have a period monthly...why are you checking that you're pregnant?' " she said.

While pregnant Bryony went to Alton Towers theme park where she went on every ride, attended music festivals and went on a trip to Poland, which she now believes was on her due date.

Remarkably, she said she was told that her daughter Willow could have been around two weeks overdue due to her "wrinkly old man" appearance.

"I had a bad back but I always have one because I'm 5'11 and slouch in my job every day, so it was no more than normal," she said.

According to Helen Cheyne, professor of maternal and infant health research at the University of Stirling, "it is not known" how a cryptic pregnancy like Bryony's can happen.

She said: "It's actually one of these rather ill-understood phenomena [and] I think it's very difficult for people to understand - how could a woman not know that they were pregnant?

"We kind of have this intuitive notion that 'of course a woman will know she's pregnant as soon as she is' but historically, that wouldn't have been the case."

Prof Cheyne explained before modern methods of testing for pregnancy, women relied on more subtle signs that indicated they were expecting like feeling the baby move, which typically doesn't happen for first-time mothers until about 20 weeks.

She said there was no medical definition of a cryptic pregnancy and that there is also an absence of data collected on them.

"[They are] rare, but not exceptionally rare," she said.

"Most of my midwife colleagues had either come across it, or had heard of it, around their clinical practice."

While working as a midwife in the early 1980s, Prof Cheyne met a woman in her mid-40s with other children who claimed to have had a cryptic pregnancy.

She said the woman assumed she was entering the menopause, which was why she felt she was putting on weight and had stopped having periods.

Prof Cheyne said as few pregnancies were cryptic, it is not something women needed to be concerned about.

Bryony had been separated from Willow's father, Robert Evans, for several months when she was born.

As he was away for the weekend when she gave birth, the new mum broke the news to him a few days after their daughter's unexpected arrival.

"He was so excited - he rang me straight away and came to see her literally the next morning," she said.

"We sat in the house all day and just took it all in...it was definitely needed before I went out into the real world".

Six months after becoming parents, the pair rekindled their romance.

Four years after Willow's birth, the couple welcomed their second child, Parker Mills-Evans.

Bryony said her second pregnancy felt completely different.

"Everything I had with Parker, I didn't have with [Willow]."

Willow is now five and Bryony said she cannot imagine life without the baby she did not know she was having.

"I decided to recently share my story as I've realised there is such a lack of support and knowledge around cryptic pregnancies," she said.

"I want the other women that this has happened to, to know that they're not alone - there are others out there."