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Philadelphia mom's unexpected delivery is a train stopper

Usually it's bad weather or downed trees that stall trains. Last weekend, it was a baby. A pregnant Philadelphia woman went into labor Saturday evening, shortly after her northbound Amtrak train left Baltimore's Penn station. The train stopped in Aberdeen, Md., where police officers and paramedics boarded, intending to whisk her off to the hospital.

Usually it's bad weather or downed trees that stall trains. Last weekend, it was a baby.

A pregnant Philadelphia woman went into labor Saturday evening, shortly after her northbound Amtrak train left Baltimore's Penn station. The train stopped in Aberdeen, Md., where police officers and paramedics boarded, intending to whisk her off to the hospital.

Instead, just 20 minutes after the train stopped, Sheera Lowe gave birth to a baby girl, with emergency workers and fellow passengers coaching and comforting her, police said.

In the most unusual of birth announcements, the Aberdeen Police Department posted a photo of a smiling Lowe cradling her newborn on their Facebook page, declaring: "Trinity Christina Stokes entered the world at 6:01 PM, weighing a healthy 8 lbs. 5 ounces."

Emergency workers took the pair afterward to the University of Maryland Chesapeake Medical Center, where both "could rest comfortably."

The train then continued on to its original destination, New York.

Lowe, 26, boarded the train in Kannapolis, N.C., after visiting her husband, a FedEx employee working there.

The baby was due March 4, but Lowe told emergency workers that she began having contractions and her water broke not long after her train left Baltimore.

Lowe told officers that she chose her daughter's middle name to honor the passenger, a stranger from New York, who comforted her throughout her labor and delivery.

Officer Robert Gibbons, a father of two who assisted in the birth, was so overwhelmed by the experience that he visited Lowe and her baby in the hospital afterward, police said.