Country singer Lauren Alaina had a near-traumatic childbirth experience.
“We had, kind of, a wild birth,” Alaina, 31, said on the Wednesday, April 8, episode of Bobby Bones’ “Father Knows Less” YouTube show. “When I would push, Beni’s heart rate plummeted, and they couldn’t figure out why. Her umbilical cord was wrapped around her head twice and up under her shoulder and then between her legs. So when I would push, it was pulling.”
Alaina gave birth in June 2025 to daughter Beni Doll, her first child with husband Cameron Arnold. In the moment, the American Idol alum wasn’t sure why Beni’s heart rate had dropped.
“I knew something was not right. I was very scared,” Alaina recalled. “It was really scary … [and] they basically told me not to push until the doctor got there. I did not push, and the doctor came in, told me all the things they were going to have to do to get her out.”
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Alaina’s physician informed her that there were “forceps” and a “vacuum” on hand to help deliver her baby if needed.
“They’re telling me this, and I look up at my husband, and I am scared to death,” she said. “It’s scary anyway, but then that started happening. I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ And she was so far down in the birth canal that they would have had to push her back up for a C-section, so they said that really wasn’t the greatest choice at that point either. So, we’re having to pick the best of not great choices.”
Despite Alaina’s fears, she pushed so that her doctors could “assess” the next steps to safely deliver Beni.
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“He said, ‘Well, what we’re gonna do [is] I want you to push as hard as you can, and I just kind of want to see the position of her head, and then you’re going to relax, and then we’ll do it again and we’re going to get her,’” Alaina noted. “I looked up at my husband. I will never forget it. Something happened to me, and I pushed her out. Like, they did not have to use anything.”
According to Alaina, she “pushed twice” before her baby came out.
“I was so scared that she wasn’t going to be OK, and I heard her,” she said. “I see the doctor untangling. I’m like, ‘Is she OK?’ My husband is hysterically sobbing, and they laid her on me and she didn’t cry immediately. They suctioned out of her mouth and she [wailed]. I literally have never heard a more beautiful sound. My life changed instantly in that second.”
