I had to give birth to my baby in the front seat of the car… after my mum got us lost on way to hospital
A WOMAN has given birth in the front seat of her car after her own mum got lost on their way to the hospital.
Ali Bamford, 28, was forced to give birth while wedged in the front seat of the car and caught baby Delilah in her arms, one mile from the hospital in Wakefield, West Yorkshire.
Ali said: "It was so quick, I gave birth right there in the front seat and my mum had to unwrap the umbilical cord because it was all wrapped around my legs."
She went into labour in the middle of the night, and asked her mum Jane to drive her to the nearest hospital but she had never driven the route before and took a wrong turn on the way.
Ali's baby girl couldn't wait any longer and Delilah was born at the side of the A650, with the road recorded on her birth certificate.
The mum-of-four says: “I had moved house the year before so the route to the hospital was different than it had been for my other births.
“Part of the motorway was closed so we had to come off at a different junction.
"I started telling Mum I had to push, and she told me she was lost and that I couldn’t push; there was total panic in the car!
“Delilah is doing really well now and I can’t wait to tell her the story when she’s older.”
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Ali and her partner, Jamie Firth, 33, have three older daughters, Scarlet, 11, Lillie, five, and two-year-old Thea, who were all born without any drama.
Ali went into labour in the early hours of October 20 2021, and called her mum, Jane Wilding, 53, to take her hospital while Jamie stayed at home with the kids.
Ali says: “My mum arrived in her Renault Megane and she was keen to get going because she’d never driven the new route to the hospital before.
“I was more relaxed, pottering about the house getting my bag ready, even though my contractions were about three minutes apart.
“We set off, but part of the motorway was closed, and we had to come off at a junction we weren’t familiar with. The contractions suddenly became much stronger and mum was getting in a panic, trying to follow the Sat Nav whilst I was screaming in agony.
“I told her the baby was coming and I’d have to push, and she was shouting: ‘You can’t push, we’re lost!’ It was complete chaos.
Ali said they didn't know where they were so her mum came off the slip road, but Delilah was born before she stopped the car: “I was wedged in the passenger seat and I caught Delilah in my arms.
“Mum dashed round to the passenger side to unwrap the umbilical cord from round my legs. We were both in total shock. We didn’t know what to do.
“Amazingly, we spotted a woman going past and she gave us directions to Pinderfields Hospital which was only about a mile away.
“I wrapped Delilah in my dressing gown and Mum ran into A and E to get a team of nurses to come out. We hadn’t even cut the cord. It was a crazy hour.”
Ali and Delilah remained in hospital for checks before being allowed home later that same afternoon and are both doing well.
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Ali says: “On Delilah’s birth certificate, it says she was born on the A650, Carr Gate, West Yorkshire.
“Mum was amazing; I can’t thank her enough. She had to have the car valeted obviously, and she can’t sell it now – it holds too many precious memories!”
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