Don’t cut the cord! How to deliver a roadside baby

If you were compiling a list of places you wouldn’t want to give birth, the side of the road is one that could easily make the list. However, over the weekend, the M50 became the place of birth listed on one baby’s birth cert.

Dublin Fire Brigade’s paramedics delivered the baby girl in the early hours of Sunday morning, before transferring the mother and baby to the Coombe Hospital in Dublin. Once everyone was safe and sound, the Fire Brigade tweeted about its roadside feat.

According to Helen Coe, chairperson of the Community Midwives Association, this is a more common event than you might imagine. “That’s a story every hospital can tell you. It happens week in, week out,” she says.

It’s not a birth story we’d fancy, but here are seven things you need to know if you get caught out on the way to the hospital.

1. Early labour is just like normal labour

According to Aisling Dixon, a midwife in Roscommon and treasurer of the Community Midwives Association, if you’re in labour and things are happening a little too quickly for your liking, you’ll know all about it.

“Early labour would be no different to going into normal labour; it’s as simple as that. If your water breaks, go to hospital. Your water breaking and pains are the only two things to look out for,” she says.

2. Go with your instinct

John Ball is a GP and his wife, Sarah Ball, is a nurse. About seven years ago, they were on their way to a wedding and saw a man flagging for help just outside Kilkenny. His wife was in labour. John stopped to help but didn’t realise what he was letting himself in for.

“I went in and I kind of thought it was mainly to reassure her because it was the side of the road, but I went in and she was having a baby. We could see the head coming,” he says.

“The baby came out quite easily, it was just a bit of a turn of the head and then it delivered quickly enough. We were on instinct at that stage… We were probably going to be late anyway, but delivering the baby was a great excuse for being late.”

Sarah kept cool and calm, which he says you need in that situation. “My wife, first thing, said don’t sit down on anything because the waters had broken and there was stuff all over the place. I was about to put my jacket down and I think she showed tremendous focus to think of that.”

3. Your body knows what it’s at

It probably won’t feel like it when you’re stuck at the side of the road, but Dixon’s main piece of advice for emergency labour is to do what your body is telling you to do.

“You can’t prepare for it, no one ever plans for that to happen… Listen to your body and let the baby come. You just say to them to go with their body and not to try and do anything else,” she says.

4. Call for help

You can’t make the ambulance come any faster than it already is but that doesn’t have to mean you’re on your own. Being a GP, Ball is used to antenatal care rather than births themselves. In the moment, he was foggy on the details of after-birth care for the baby. Calling an obstetrician removes that element of uncertainty and panic when you’re being told exactly what needs to be done.

“I suddenly forgot everything and I didn’t really know when to clamp the cord. I rang the local obstetrician who talked me through and said there was no panic; once the ambulance arrived they had stuff for that. They went on then and that was it. It turned out that everything was healthy with the baby which was the main thing,” he says.

5. Keep the baby warm and don’t touch the cord

Babies are usually surrounded by doctors upon delivery who know what’s what but if you’re on your own and waiting for an ambulance, the key things to remember once the baby is born is to keep them warm and to leave dealing with the cord and the placenta to the experts – it can wait until the ambulance arrives.

“We would say to keep the baby warm, put a hat on the baby’s head, and put it skin to skin next to you. Don’t fiddle with the cord, don’t cut it and leave the placenta attached to the baby, don’t attempt to deliver it,” says Dixon.

6. Stay at home

It might go against your instinct but if you go into labour and know the baby will be on the way more quickly than you’d like, Dixon says you’re better off not getting into your car.

“If they feel the baby is coming, wait for an ambulance at home rather than getting into car and ending up delivering at the side of the road. Your own house would be warmer and you feel safer there,” she says.

7. More than anything, don’t panic

Easier said than done, but according to Dixon, you have less to worry about with a fast birth where you’ve carried to full term. “Most births like that, with normal term labour, labours that progress quickly, happen without complication and it’s uncommon for a complication to deliver after, so be reassured by that,” she says.

Ball also advises remaining as calm as possible, saying: “If the baby is coming, often nature will help you along.”