View this post on Instagram[1]
Triplet births [3] are pretty rare to begin with, but even rarer are "en caul" births [4], when a baby is born with its amniotic sac in tact. We've seen births like this before, where doctors deliver the baby inside what looks like — for lack of a better comparison — a clear rubber casing, then they usually pop the sac and the baby is fully born. During a recent triplets C-section birth, Dr. Rodrigo da Rosa Filho delivered not one, but two of the babies en caul [5], but instead of opening the sac right away, watched the third baby, a little girl, wriggle around for seven minutes — giving us the best possible peek at what babies look like in the womb.
"Yesterday we birthed the triplets! And Joaquim was born veiled (when the waters/sac does not break). We were delighted," reads a translation of the doctor's post on Instagram. "But then came Adeline . . . she was also born en caul [6], and left us all admiring her as she slept soundly. We stayed (that way) for seven minutes observing her behaviour as if it were still inside her belly. It's the magic of life."
Check out the truly mesmerising en caul video [8] above.