Ngahuia's baby blessing: 'I WAS AS SURPRISED AS EVERYONE ELSE!’

The Shortland Street star performed hair-raising stunts while pregnant - for the second year in a row!

- Amy Prebble

For stunning Ngahuia Piripi, playing a major part in dramatic, death-defying scenes on Shortland Street while heavily pregnant is all in a day’s work.

Last year, while 30 weeks pregnant with her son Niau, the actress – who has starred as surgeon Esther Samuels for the past seven years – very carefully performed stunts, watched the on-screen father of her child meet a violent end and even acted out giving birth for the gritty online series Shortland Street: Retribution.

This year, at 35 weeks pregnant, Ngahuia’s character ends up in another sticky situation in Shorty’s shocking Christmas cliffhanger.

“Ferndale is definitely not the place you want to be around during Christmastime!” laughs the bubbly 32-year-old. “Esther ends up in a dire situation with the people she loves most. We were shooting these scenes on location at night and I had to wade into some water.

“Everyone on set was worried about me being pregnant and in the water, but I wasn’t worried about that at all. The only thing that was terrifying me were the eels. They were everywhere and they were huge! I think we did the scene in one take because I wanted to get out of there as quickly as I could!”