Queen Alexandra Hospital car park birth - Portsmouth mother thanks staff for their quick actions

Emily Kelly gave birth to a baby boy, George Kelly, in the early hours of Friday, December 29, but it was not the birth she had been planning for. Less than an hour after being told to make her way to hospital, her water broke after getting out of the car, and it became apparent that George was not going to wait for the short trip across to the hospital entrance.

Kelly can now look back on the situation with a sense of humour despite its severity at the time. She said: "It all happened very quickly. The pain had only really started that morning and I didn't think much of it. This is my sixth baby, so, I kind of just tried to ignore it but I'm glad I didn't. All I can remember is I rang the hospital and they told me to come in and that was at about 4.20 in the morning. My mum took me down and the pain started to get a bit worse in the car. We arrived at the hospital and I took four steps and my waters went, and he was basically coming and there was no stopping it."

She added: "I was just across the zebra crossing from the entrance to the hospital, right where you pay for the car parking. My mum rang the ambulance and they were very quick in coming out. When they turned up I was obviously happy to see them and I thought I would be able to make it to the hospital, but the midwife told me his head was already out. They had to lay me back down there for the delivery and they rushed him straight into the hospital and I followed shortly behind him."

It was the best possible outcome from what was a dangerous situation. Emily wanted to make sure the staff at the hospital knew how much she appreciated their efforts: "I reached out to the team afterwards to thank them because they were all absolutely amazing, I think if they had not come out as quickly as they did it would have been a completely different story. Their quick actions in getting to me when they did, and the security guards that came out to help, all of them were absolutely amazing. They managed to keep me quite chilled in what was a very scary experience."

Over a month on from the birth, both mother and baby are doing well, and George has a unique entry in his birth certificate. Emily said: "He is absolutely amazing. I have got him registered now and he actually has car park written on his birth certificate. They had to double check it with the hospital as they asked me where he was born and I said by the entrance of QA and they thought I meant in QA, so I had to say no, not in the hospital. They rang through to QA and said 'we have a lady here claiming she gave birth in the car park', they went 'oh have you got little car park George there?'"

Little car park George is certainly known by the staff at QA. It's an anecdote he will no doubt hear lots about as he grows up but as of now he is blissfully unaware of the commotion he caused in rushing to meet his mum.