JOIN USLiew Siaw Hsia had been flying home on Wednesday after quitting her job as a waitress when she started having labour pains.
A doctor on the flight helped her deliver while the plane was still 2,000 feet in the air.
Free flights
She and the airline said she had been 27 weeks pregnant, 11 weeks short of the full term. The airline, AirAsia, said it would give Liew and her child free flights for life.
Liew said that doctors at a hospital outside Kuala Lumpur have told her that they do not expect any health complications and that she can take her baby home on Monday or Tuesday.
She said her boy’s current weight was about 3.2 kilograms.
“I was worried about my baby, but now I’m happy,” she said. “I never thought something like this would happen.”
A specialist on babies and children at a Kuala Lumpur private clinic said it was possible for a baby born at 27 weeks to be healthy and as heavy as Liew’s. He asked that he and his clinic not be identified because Malaysian doctors are supposed to get health ministry approval before making statements to the media on public cases.
Liew, a 31-year-old divorcee, said she plans to raise the boy on her own in her home state of Sarawak on Borneo island.