I was covered in blood and I had no idea what I was doing, but I helped deliver by neighbour's baby
“I was covered in blood. All I could think was, ‘what the hell just happened?’
A former Blackpool Teaching Hospital healthcare assistant is about to qualify as a midwife six years after unexpectedly helping deliver her neighbour’s baby.
Katie Hey, 35, from Fulwood, was working as a healthcare assistant at Blackpool Teaching Hospital when her neighbour came knocking on her door one night to say his partner was in labour.
“I’ve never seen a normal delivery because I had two emergency caesareans for my own,” Katie said. “I thought I was going to go over and she would just be contracting. She was crawling down the stairs in labour.”
Katie grabbed her mother to look after her own children, then aged two and six, before rushing to her neighbour’s home. “I ran in, and the next minute, this head started crowning,” she said. “I was thinking, ‘God, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’ll go with it’. I told her to just go with her body.
“Then the baby boy was delivered, obviously still attached to the placenta, but it hadn’t come away. I just had hold of this baby between her legs, still waiting for the ambulance to come. All I knew was that when a baby is born, you have to stimulate and rub them, so I did that.
“I told her partner to get some towels, and I wrapped the baby up, stimulated it, and it had its first cry, but the mother couldn’t move. The umbilical cord wasn’t that long, and she couldn’t get off all fours.
“The ambulance came about ten minutes after the baby had been delivered, and I tied this shoelace around the cord. They gave her what I now know was an oxytocin injection to help the placenta release, and they helped position her in the kitchen.
“I passed the baby over. I was covered in blood. All I could think was, ‘what the hell just happened?’. It was the most surreal moment I’ve ever felt.”
The baby, David, now attends the same school as Katie’s children. Her neighbours later brought her flowers and chocolate as thanks. “But I said it should be me thanking you guys instead,” said Katie.
At the time, Katie was unsure about her own career. She had worked as a healthcare assistant and previously as a teaching assistant, but said she had never found her calling. “At that moment in my career, I didn’t know if I wanted to do nursing or something else. I wanted to progress my career, but I was a bit up in the air in terms of what I wanted to do.
“I’ve never known what I wanted to do all my life. I’ve been from job to job, and before I was a healthcare assistant, I was a teaching assistant. I’d never found my calling. And then this happened and I thought, ‘this must be a sign’.”
Katie went on to study at the University of Lancashire, completing GCSEs, pre-access and access courses before securing a place on its midwifery course at her first attempt.
“I was absolutely shocked,” she said. “Luckily I’d got all the credits I needed, and it was the best decision I’ve ever made. I can’t even put into words how supportive the university is, and I literally do feel like I’ve got friends for life from the staff.
“It’s not the easiest job to do. I’m quite thankful I had that healthcare background of working long days, as it wasn’t much of a transition going into midwifery. In the long scheme of things, I’m glad I didn’t get those GCSE results because as a mature student going straight into midwifery, that would have been a lot more daunting than having to build myself up into it.”
Now working at Blackpool Teaching Hospital, Katie has also spoken about the pressures facing the profession. “There is not enough staff,” she said. “There’s not enough funding for staff, either. I work at Blackpool Teaching Hospital, and the staff are phenomenal – I can’t fault a single one of them, ever.”
She said the role involves far more than simply delivering babies, and recalled the emotional impact of being involved in a neonatal death. “I was involved in a neonatal death not so long ago. I’ve never done that before, and it was my biggest fear going into this sector. I just sat in my car and cried. You feel like you’re got allowed to have these emotions, but you are. We’re all human.”
Despite the challenges, Katie achieved top marks in midwifery and says she is now “thriving” since graduation.
“I literally cannot comprehend how much I absolutely love midwifery. [That first delivery] feels like a million miles away now, but going from that to where I am now is amazing – I need to deliver ten babies, and then I qualify fully.
“You don’t go into this job for praise,” she said. “But when someone says to you that you’ve made a difference, that’s when I know I’m in the right place and doing the right thing. You work your hardest, but some days you still come home wondering if you’ve done enough.
“But when you hear those little comments, you realise you’ve done something good. It sticks with you forever.”