Dad delivers baby girl after panicked midwife leaves | UK | News
Cleo Gray was delivered by her father Matt (Image: Family Statement)
The father gave birth to his baby after the midwife left the hospital room in panic.
Baby Cleo Gray was born Feb. 21 at the John Radcliffe Hospital Women’s Center with an umbilical cord around her neck. She was delivered by her father Matt, a former ambulance technician, after a “panicked” midwife left the room.
According to the Sun, Matt managed to remove the cord from Cleo’s neck after the high-risk birth.
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When staff returned to the room they found Matt’s wife, Jo, cradling the baby. Jo was fuming and told the Banbury Guardian: “This is terrible. It could have gone so wrong.”
Cleo is the couple’s fourth child and the birth was expected to proceed quickly. The birth was deemed high risk due to Jo having various health problems.
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Jo went to John Radcliffe Hospital Women’s Center after going into labor two weeks early. Oxford University Hospitals Trust (OUH), which operates the hospital, apologized to the family.
Jo initially said she had a lovely midwife. However, since the first midwife was needed elsewhere, a substitute arrived to take care of the birth.
“Things got worse after that – really bad,” Jo said. She said the new midwife seemed less experienced and was not communicative or reassuring.
“I went into full delivery within minutes,” Jo said.
Jo said the midwife kept moving her and the baby’s heartbeat kept changing, but this was normal after each contraction.
“But she started to panic and that made me panic,” Jo added.
She said the midwife told her that the baby’s heart rate had dropped and was becoming dangerous.
General view of the sign at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford (file image) (Image: PA Archive/PA Images)
Jo said she would have a panic attack because she had previously had a traumatic birth and almost lost her son during that birth.
“But before we knew it, he had left the room. We were left alone,” he said.
Matt went out to call the midwife, who returned but left again after a short time.
They claim he was gone for 10-15 minutes.
“After coming out for the second time, I realized we were going to have to deliver the baby ourselves. I put on the gloves and minutes later the baby was born,” Matt said.
“When he came out, I saw that the cord was actually around his neck. I managed to open the package, but I couldn’t get rid of the mucus.”
“I cleaned him up, dried him off and gave him to Jo. They came back about two minutes later and said I’d better wear gloves!” Matt said.
The couple said they were unable to reach the call button behind Jo’s bed to get help.
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Jo said staff did not apologize at the time and told the couple the incident was “very unfortunate but all is well”.
The couple then made a formal complaint to the OUH and the Care Quality Commission.
An OUH spokesman said they took the issues they raised very seriously and would be carrying out a full investigation into what happened.
“We cannot provide further details while the investigation is ongoing, but we will remain committed to openness and transparency in sharing all our findings with Jordan and Matthew once the process is complete,” the spokesperson said.
The OUH maternity unit is one of 12 units surveyed as part of the National Maternity and Newborn Survey.
There are deep-rooted problems in NHS maternity care, an interim report has revealed.
