Layla’s birth certificate records a Dunkin’ Donuts address in Raleigh as her birthplace and names her father, Michael Holley, as the person who delivered her, WRAL reported. She was born at 1:58 a.m. on Nov. 2, weighing 7 pounds, 6 ounces.
A delivery on the way to hospital
Morgan Hudgins was about two weeks from her due date when labor began. The couple were driving toward a hospital when Layla was born in the parking lot at Durant Road and Capital Boulevard. Holley called 911; according to WRAL, he noticed the cord was partly around the baby’s neck and acted to free it and encourage her to breathe before an ambulance arrived.
Holley and Layla were taken in one ambulance and Hudgins in another. Hospital staff monitored Layla’s oxygen levels, and the family went home a few days later, WRAL reported.
Other roadside births in North Carolina
Layla’s delivery has precedents in other reported North Carolina emergencies, though the incidents are examples, not evidence of how often births happen outside hospitals. In a separate Raleigh case reported on June 18, 2018, Sgt. W.C. Johnson assisted a family on Capital Boulevard near Highwoods Boulevard. The Highway Patrol said the mother and baby were taken to a hospital and were doing well, The News & Observer reported.
A different kind of roadside setting was involved in a 2012 birth in a car at a Huddle House parking lot in the Stokesdale area along U.S. 220. Two restaurant employees helped before an ambulance took the family to Cone Health’s Women’s Hospital in Greensboro, FOX8 reported. These accounts differ in location and circumstances; together, they provide local parallels, not a basis for drawing broader conclusions about birth trends.
