Baby born in Richmond Park

This is a lovely birth story and shows how easy birth CAN be. I like the rowan tree idea!

The headline is a scream. Of course the tree surgeons did not deliver the baby. The mum delivered the baby herself.

Baby delivered in park by tree surgeons

04.10.06

Giving
birth was no walk in the park for Carmel Ohrwall.
As she went into labour
there were no midwives, sterilised surfaces or hot towels. Instead, she found
herself kneeling on grass being tended to by surgeons - tree surgeons.
Peter
Carlyon and Ed Campbell-White stopped to help after they saw the woman in
Richmond Park as they passed in their Land Rover.
Mrs Ohrwall, 43, from East
Sheen, told how her husband Fredrik had been trying to call an ambulance but the
operator kept demanding a postcode. "Fredrik was saying, 'Look, we're in the
middle of Richmond Park - are you going to send an ambulance or not?'" she said.
The 7lb baby was born while his father was on the phone. There were no
complications and the couple are now back home with a brother for James, three.
"We haven't chosen a name yet. We're calling him Parkie," said Mrs Ohrwall.
She told how when her contractions began she phoned her husband, who rushed
home from work in the City, and they set off for Kingston Hospital. "As we drove
through the park the urge to push was just so great I had to say to Fredrik,
'Can you pull over'," said Mrs Ohrwall. "There was nothing I could do. I jumped
on to the grass verge and he was out within a few pushes.
"A few seconds
after he started crying. I was just so relieved. Anything could have happened.
What a place to be introduced to the world."
Mr Carlyon, 29, said: "We were
driving past and saw a woman on the ground so we spun the Land Rover round. As
we got out, the mother delivered her own baby in her own hands. We got our
jumpers and wrapped them round the baby and mother. I called my friend who is a
midwife who told us what to do."
Paramedics arrived, cut the umbilical cord
and took them to hospital.
Sara Lom, director of the Royal Parks Foundation,
said: "The hospital phoned to congratulate the tree surgeons.
"Apparently,
most babies born outside get hypothermia but this one was fine. We'll be
planting a rowan tree on the spot."