In February 1945, a woman named Beulah Hunter gave birth to a baby girl in Los Angeles. She named her daughter Penny Diana. Although the 6.9-pound baby grew up to be a perfectly normal, healthy child, her entrance into the world was anything but normal. In fact, it remains record-breaking some 7 decades later. That’s because Penny was more than 100 days overdue, with her mother recording the longest known human pregnancy at 375 days. The average healthy pregnancy is around 40 weeks — 280 days — but Beulah was pregnant for 1 year and 10 days. Her pregnancy progressed normally for the first 3 months, but at the 6-month mark doctors noticed some differences. She had only just started to feel her baby move. Despite the delayed development, the 25-year-old’s pregnancy went completely to plan. Dr. Daniel Beltz, who delivered Penny, was forced to publicly reveal his patient’s pregnancy test to the media after the story garnered intense criticism. Many assumed that Beulah must have miscarried, quickly becoming pregnant again without realizing it. However, Dr. Beltz produced a test performed in the laboratory dated March 24, 1944 which proved that Beulah’s menstruation cycle stopped on February 10 of that year. She gave birth the following year on February 21, 1945.
