In the Velika Paklenica canyon, a healthy baby girl took her first breath on 29 July. Her mother, a 22-year-old Luxembourgish tourist, was assisted during the birth by employees at the Croatian national park.
Croatian media reported the woman started to feel labour pains during the hiking tour and ended up giving birth to the baby in a public toilet. Emergency teams arrived at the scene during the last stage of labour, later helping to transport both the mother and child to the canyon entrance, where they were transferred to hospital. The operation was affected by communication issues due to the lack of mobile phone signal in the park itself.
Hospital checks revealed the baby to be full-term, healthy and weighing around 3.3 kilograms.
Some local news sources reported the woman had discharged herself on Sunday without her child, describing her as being in a state of shock following the unexpected birth. This could not be corroborated by Luxembourgish media.
Other sources in the Croatian media later suggested the woman knew of her pregnancy, although she had not revealed it to anyone else. Croatian tabloid 24sata speculated that the young woman had concealed the pregnancy from her new partner following a recent separation from the baby’s father.
The young mother herself has declined to speak to the media, as has her family.
