A pregnant nun gave birth in a local hospital in Italy, shortly after being admitted to the emergency room for intense stomach cramps.

The Salvadorean nun was taken to the nearest medical institution on Wednesday after complaining of intense abdominal pain, and ended up giving birth to a nine-pound baby boy.

The nun claims she had no idea of her pregnancy before arriving at the hospital.

“I did not know I was pregnant. I only felt a stomach pain,” the 31-year-old woman said to Italian news outlet, ANSA.

The pregnant Salvadorean nun who gave birth belongs to "Little Disciples of Jesus," a convent situated near Rieti, Italy. The religious women run a home for senior citizens in the area.

The woman's fellow nuns in the convent were reportedly "very surprised" at the 31-year-old giving birth.

Hospital authorities did not disclose information on how the nun became pregnant, but local religious officials did not doubt her story that she was not aware of her pregnancy.

“I guess she’s telling the truth when she says she arrived at the hospital unaware of the pregnancy,” said local pastor Don Fabrizio Borrello.

The nun's unexpected birth prompted hospital staff to collect clothes and donations for the new mother, who told media outlets she wanted to raise the child.

The story of the pregnant nun became a hot topic around the world and drew everyone's attention to Rieti that mayor Simone Petrangeli came forward to appeal for her privacy.

The unnaned religious woman is not the first nun to give birth in recent months.

In October 2013, an American studying to be a nun gave birth secretly, but smothered her baby to death. The nun in training told authorities she didn't want anyone to know that she had sexual intercourse.

The pregnant nun who gave birth this week named her newborn boy Francis, the name of the current pope.

Due to the nun's claims, rumors of parthenogenesis or virgin birth has become a popular theory in explaining the nun's pregnancy. It is a rare phenomenon such that vert few women can claim to give birth without sexual intercourse or technologically assisted methods of fertilization.