SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah woman who unexpectedly gave birth on a cruise ship months before her due date says she wrapped towels around the 1 1/2-pound boy with the help of medical staff in a desperate effort to keep him alive until the ship reached port.

Emily Morgan, of Ogden, said Thursday that doctors didn’t expect her son Haiden to live, but thanks to strong lungs, a makeshift incubator and an early arrival in Puerto Rico, the baby made it. He’s now receiving care at a neonatal intensive care unit in Miami.

Morgan, 28, said the baby was due in December but contractions began Aug. 31 during a seven-day cruise around the eastern Caribbean. Her doctor approved the cruise to celebrate her daughter’s third birthday, Morgan said.

The pregnancy had been uneventful, so she was shocked when the contractions began just past the halfway mark in her pregnancy. She thought they might be false labour.

But she and her husband called medical staff when they saw blood. A doctor aboard the Royal Caribbean ship told her she couldn’t give birth because they were still 14 hours from the nearest port in Puerto Rico. But holding back wasn’t an option, Morgan said.

“I knew the baby was coming,” she said.

After the delivery, she said the doctors told her she had miscarried and she should get some rest, but she insisted on seeing the baby. About 45 minutes later, medical staff said the baby had survived but wasn’t expected to live long.

“I had felt him kicking. I felt the process of him getting bigger,” she said. “I said, ‘I’m going to see him, I don’t care if he’s alive or if he’s dead.”’

They brought her to her newborn son, who was wrapped in towels wet from the birth. He was wearing a tiny oxygen mask on his face.

“He was crying, like a little feeble cry,” she said. Along with his healthy pink coloring, it was a positive sign that his lungs were relatively strong.

As the hours went on, she insisted he be wrapped in fresh, dry towels, and she helped staff tuck microwaved saline packets around him to create a makeshift incubator. They used a sanitary napkin to keep his head warm and tried to avoid touching his sensitive skin.

Meanwhile, the captain was speeding the boat to Puerto Rico, and it arrived about two hours early. It was none too soon black spots were starting to appear on Haiden’s fingers, indicating his circulation was starting to fade.

Two ambulances rushed the family to a hospital, and they were transferred to a children’s hospital in Miami a few days later.

Haiden is making good progress, Morgan said. He’s being fed breast milk through a syringe into a tube in his stomach — 2 tablespoons at a time over the course of 90 minutes.

He’s expected to be hospitalized until his Dec. 19 due date, though they’re hoping he’ll be strong enough to return to Utah at the end of October.

KSL-TV in Salt Lake City was first to report on the birth.