A Tennessee mom is opening up about why she let her 7-year-old daughter into the delivery room with her to witness the birth of her younger sibling.
Ashley Cunningham, 36, shared footage of her daughter Sophia reacting her baby sister's birth late last year in a TikTok post on March 4 that has since gone viral, with over 2 million views and over 2,000 comments.
Cunningham, a pharmacist and mom of three, told "Good Morning America" the "special moment" was the culmination of "a lot of conversations" she had with Sophia, who was 7 at the time, about pregnancy and childbirth, topics she said her daughter was very interested in.
"It came up naturally. She's a super curious child," Cunningham explained. "So she's always asking like, 'How does this work? Why is it this way?' And she has always been medically interested in stuff like that."
"I like that stuff," Sophia added about watching videos of medical procedures online.
Cunningham said she worked to prepare Sophia ahead of time before they decided to go ahead with a plan to include her in the delivery room when the time came.
"We watched a couple birthing videos and she handled it fine so I wanted to make sure she was good as far as the gross factor goes, you know, because there's a lot that happens in the delivery room," Cunningham said.
Cunningham said she also spoke with her doctor and care team beforehand to make sure her daughter could be with her in the delivery room.
"Then it just kind of evolved into me talking to the doctor, making sure she was OK with it. We had to get it cleared through the actual hospital facility," Cunningham said.
Cunningham ended up delivering her third child, a daughter named Brynlee, at Parkwest Medical Center in Knoxville, Tennessee, on Dec. 11, 2023. In addition to staffers and Sophia, Cunningham was joined by her husband Russell and her mother Carolyn Hughes, who captured Sophia's reaction -- an awe-inspired gasp as she saw her sister for the very first time.
"There she is, Sophia," Cunningham is heard saying in the footage, shortly after medical staff show the family a newborn Brynlee. Sophia, who stood next to her mother's bed as she pushed, appears to become emotional before continuing to smile broadly.
"It didn't really traumatize me," Sophia recalled of her reaction. "I still want to have kids … but I was really excited to see Brynlee when she first came out and see what she looked like."
When reached by "GMA," Amanda Brabson Paletz, a spokesperson for Parkwest Medical Center, said the hospital was happy to accommodate Cunningham's request for her daughter to watch in the delivery room.
"At Covenant Health Parkwest it's our privilege to help families welcome their newborns every day. The birth of a child is such a special and personal time, and we're grateful that our team was able to make that experience extra meaningful for the Cunningham family," Paletz said in a statement.
"Although our childbirth team doesn't get the request for older siblings to be present during births very often, all mothers are encouraged to talk to their care team in advance about arrangements for their personalized childbirth experience," she continued. "Our Covenant Health team prides itself on putting our patients first every day, and the Cunninghams' experience is a great example of that. And, after seeing the excitement on big sister's face in the TikTok video, you never know … we might have a future doctor or nurse in our midst!"
Cunningham said she "loved" seeing Sophia's reaction and she was proud of how her older daughter handled the childbirth, adding that it was "cool" for the sisters to share "this special bond" from the very beginning.
"It's such a pure and genuine reaction that you see on [Sophia's] face that you can't help but love it," she said.
"I'm super proud of her for how she handled it," she added. "I just think it's a good display of her maturity and how well she did in that situation."
Cunningham acknowledged having an older child watch a childbirth isn't something for every family or every child, adding that her firstborn son Liam wasn't interested in being an active part of the childbirth process.
"It's not for every child. You really have to make that call based on each child individually and what you think that they can handle," Cunningham said.
