A father overcome by the birth of his second child was captured on camera fainting in the delivery room as his newborn arrived via C-section.
Maicon Pedroso collapsed at a hospital in Criciúma, Brazil, while witnessing his wife, Mariane Felippe, deliver their second daughter during a C-section on April 18. An attending medic dressed in scrubs was forced to grab the dad, who was clutching Ms Felippe's hand the moment his daughter was delivered, by the armpits and steady him.
He was gently lowered to the floor, where he lay unconscious. Maicon, who woke shortly after the fainting incident, said he regained consciousness in hospital with no memory of his child being born.
Maicon told local media: "I don't remember anything at all from the moment the baby was born." He and his wife called the hospital in the early hours of the morning last week as Ms Felippe's water broke. Doctors decided to perform a C-section, which went smoothly until the final moment.
Patricia Vogel and Viviane Borges, two photographers attending the delivery, remarked on how well the process appeared to have been before "the exact moment the baby was born." They said: "When we arrived, they were a bit anxious, but everything was going as expected. It was all happening in a light, calm way, with the medical team feeling very confident and the parents too. Then, at 8.24am, at the exact moment the baby was born, the father fainted."
The pair, who together have "documented more than 1,500 births," they told local media, added they had seen men faint at the scene previously. They said: "We've been exclusively dedicated to birth photography for five years. We've documented more than 1,500 births, and this is definitely a scene we've seen happen a few times before." Medics, on the other hand, were said to have been taken by surprise after the dad lost consciousness.
While the fainting came as a shock, the dad was said to have quite quickly recovered and was able to spend time with his newborn following the C-section.
The dad's delivery reaction was captured in a clip and shared online, where it has since racked up nearly 19 million views and courted a series of comments from onlookers. Many viewers were keen to point out the dad's reaction in the face of his wife's delivery of a newborn child. They said: "Women don't realise how tough it can be for the father. Stay strong, warrior!" Another joked that the dad was "stealing the spotlight."
A third viewer offered a window into the wife's perspective, saying: "Imagine having seven layers of skin cut away and your husband saying in the background, 'But I had it worse because I fainted.'"
