An Australian mother gave birth on the side of a highway because the maternity suite at her closest hospital had been turned into a Covid ward.
Yvette Bracefield, from Chinchilla in southern Queensland, gave birth to her daughter Beatrix on January 3 while she and her husband were in the middle of an hour-long car ride to the Dalby Hospital.
She was unable to use the maternity suite at Chinchilla Hospital because it had been turned into a COVID-19 ward.
Staff at the hospital told her that she could go into labour in the Accidents and Emergency Centre.
‘I thought my best option is to go to Dalby Hospital, because that way I am not giving birth in an area where anyone can walk in with an injury and where the bathroom is communal,’ she said.
Instead, Ms Bracefield and her husband made the 80-kilometre journey to the next closest hospital in the town of Dalby, with their midwife following closely behind in another car.
Just 25km away from the hospital, Ms Bracefield’s water broke and after pulling to the side of the road, she gave birth to Beatrix on the pavement – her midwife arriving just in time to put her hands underneath the baby’s head.
‘Her birth had been so fast, and an irrational part of me had been so scared that one of us would have let her go splat on the road,’ the mother said in a blog post about the experience.
Yvette Bracefield, from Chinchilla in southern Queensland, have birth to her daughter Beatrix on the side of a highway on January 3. Her local hospital had turned its maternity unit into a Covid ward and she was on her way to the next hospital, 80km away, when her water broke
Throughout the car ride she had been in agony from her contractions, kneeling on the passenger seat with her back towards the glovebox.
The idea of giving birth back at Chinchilla was horrifying to the soon to be mother-of-two.
Pictured is the car Ms Bracefield was driving in with her husband when she had to pull over to give birth
‘If I was going to deliver here, it would be the A and E, where any child that had knocked out their tooth accidentally would be sent,’ she said.
‘They had evicted the midwives from a birthing suite with a shower and toilet attached and moved them into the child health office, which was a glorified broom cupboard with the nearest toilet way down the corridor.
‘There was no way I was going to let people poke around my parts in a room far away from a toilet.’
After giving birth, Ms Bracefield was then rushed to the Dalby Hospital by her midwife but a heap of flies had made their way into the car while she sat naked with her baby.
‘Most of them were crawling up and down my legs. But I didn’t care. In many ways, I was in seventh heaven,’ she said.
‘I had given birth standing outside in the Queensland sunshine. While it hadn’t been my plan and it was certainly a shock to me, I hadn’t felt any fear.
‘Just a sense of urgency as the time had drawn nearer. In many ways, it was the birth I had wanted, even though it wasn’t the birth I had planned.’
While Beatrix and Ms Gracefield are both recovering well, the trauma from the experience has not been easy.
Ms Gracefield, pictured with her two daughters, said she had nightmares after giving birth to Beatrix
The mother, who has another one-year-old daughter, said she struggled with nightmares about her baby falling onto the road with nobody to catch her, and couldn’t sleep for three days.
But despite the shock of giving birth next to a highway, Ms Gracefield, who works as a singing and piano teacher, said it was all worth it to have her baby girl.
‘I would birth again butt naked on the highway if I had to,’ she said.
‘Because that’s motherhood – you do what you need to do at the time to take care of your children and give them your love, even if it means you’re bleeding and covered in flies.
‘I wouldn’t have it any other way.’
A spokesperson for the hospital said: ‘In line with healthcare facilities across the state, infrastructure measures were undertaken at the Chinchilla Hospital in response to the COVID-19 pandemic,’ a Darling Downs Health spokesperson said.
‘This included making changes to the midwifery care space, in the event of a Covid-19 case at the hospital.’
The mother-of-two said she the shock of giving birth roadside was worth it to have her baby girl in her arms
