Woman gives birth in cemetery on ‘Undas’

MANILA, Philippines - A woman gave birth in the Manila North Cemetery on Thursday night.

Jennylyn Ventura, 24, gave birth to a daughter at around 8 p.m. in a Philippine Red Cross ambulance parked just inside the cemetery gates. PRC staff helped deliver her baby, then rushed mother and child to the Tondo General Hospital for treatment.

Both are in good condition after the birth, doctors said.

According to ABS-CBN, Ventura has lived in the cemetery all her life, but never thought she would deliver her third child there on All Saints’ Day. She said she was supposed to give birth on Nov. 9.

Ventura and her family – her husband is a tricycle driver – sleep in a mausoleum, which they have to vacate during the day so its owners would not catch them trespassing.

Ventura named her newborn daughter Jasmin Rain, but is open to giving her the nickname “Unday,” derived from “Undas” or All Saints’ Day, as some of her neighbors have suggested.