Woman delivers on roadside

A PREGNANT young mother travelling from Nine-Mile to the Port Moresby General Hospital suddenly went into labour and had to deliver her baby on the side of a busy Port Moresby road last Friday.
The emergency delivery took place between 2.30pm and 4pm as traffic roared past unaware of the drama, a bystander told The National.
Unfortunately, the baby was stillborn.
Bystanders said the young Gulf province woman was on her way to the hospital on a public motor vehicle but as she went into labour, she had to take refuge beside the fenced-off flower edges outside the Moale Dabua second-hand shop along Cameron Road, Gordon, to deliver her baby.
Bystanders rushed to help and created a little shelter by tying up bedsheets obtained from the shop around a power pylon to provide privacy for  the young mother.
A father, who was carrying his three-year-old child on his shoulders, told The National that bystanders had assisted and shielded the expectant mother as best as they could.
When The National arrived at the scene at 3.35pm, the mother had given birth to a stillborn baby and was awaiting the arrival of the St John ambulance, which arrived about 3.45pm.
One female onlooker said the child was
stillborn because its umbilical cord was wound around its neck
at birth.
“There was nothing I could do to assist,” the helper told The National.
Both mother and child were taken to the Port Moresby General Hospital about 4 pm.