Baby makes entrance into world on hospital CCTV

February 12, 2010 by Shawn Douglas
Filed under: News

Baby Alice made her entrance into the world when her mother collapsed in the foyer of a British hospital and gave birth while being recorded on CCTV.

Caroline Meech, already a mother of three, didn’t expect that her fourth child would be brought into the world under such interesting circumstances.

Meech, 32, of Chandler’s Ford, Hants, went into contractions around 1 a.m. on February 2, and she quickly summoned her husband, Mike Meech.

“I knew the baby was coming at around 1 a.m. so I told Mike to take me to hospital, and my waters broke on the way and I was just shouting ‘faster faster’ to him all the way,” Caroline Meech told The Sun.

“We screamed into the car park, and I jumped straight out and staggered to the door of the maternity unit while Mike very diligently decided to make sure he parked the car properly.”

But Meech didn’t make it past the foyer of Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester. After she was buzzed in, she collapsed.

“The midwives came running down and tried to persuade me to get in a wheelchair, but by this time I was on my hands and knees and there was no way I could move and Alice was on her way,” she said.

The midwives decided to deliver her baby there in the foyer. Ten minutes later, a healthy baby Alice was brought into the world, weighing 8 pounds, 3 ounces.

Having recorded the event on CCTV, the hospital staff decided to give Caroline and Mike a copy of the momentous event for posterity. Looking back on it, Caroline Meech said that the event was indeed comical.

“The midwives had to keep asking me to move forward because every time I pushed, the automatic doors opened!” she told The Sun. “I couldn’t stop laughing when I watched it all back on the CCTV.”

“We had an edited version because obviously there were a few bits I wouldn’t want people to see. But I’m really glad to have such an unusual memento and we will give it to Alice on her eighteenth birthday.”

The Meech family praised the hospital staff for their quick thinking under unusual conditions. “The staff were all brilliant, and I really want to thank them all,” said Caroline Meech. “It was all very exciting. The midwives were superb,” added husband Mike.