A Chaguaramas grandmother is being hailed as a hero after she delivered her daughter’s baby in the wee hours of yesterday morning.
Kathy Ann Edwards, 50, was able to safely deliver her grandson, Leonardo Gabriel Stewart, at 12.42 am, when her eldest daughter, Patrice Edwards, went into labour while visiting her on the compound of the Military Museum in Chaguaramas. Leonardo was born three weeks before his due date.
In an interview yesterday at the museum’s compound, where she lives, Edwards said before Patrice arrived, she called her complaining that she was getting some labour pains.
“She had gone to a work event earlier in the day and when she came over, she said the contractions started to get worse,” Edwards said.
With Patrice complaining of extreme pain, Edwards said the museum’s president, Linda Kelshall and Patrice’s boyfriend, Renaldo Stewart, tried getting assistance from the T&T Coast Guard base next door but they were told there was no medic or ambulance available.
A call to the emergency hotline got them the same answer.
“They couldn’t get an ambulance, we call around and they didn’t have any ambulance, then they got this ambulance from Mt Hope but there was a party (in Chaguaramas), so they took really long to get here,” Edwards said.
The medics instructed Edwards to put her daughter to lie on some cushions on the floor and to make preparations for the baby’s birth - by boiling water and sterilising string for the baby’s umbilical cord.
“I was totally nervous, even though I am a mom of five kids, I never delivered a baby before and I was really shaking and it was like God just take me over,” Edwards said.
When her daughter started to experience the strongest contractions, Edwards was able to calm her.
And although it was her first time delivering a baby, Edwards said her instincts saved the baby’s life.
“She was telling me ‘Mommy, I feeling to push’ and I told her to push. When I looked, the baby’s head was out, there was a voice in my head telling me to check for the navel string and when I checked, the navel string was around the baby’s neck and I removed it and then told her to push again. By then, the shoulders came out and the baby was born,” she recalled.
She was able to tie little Leonardo’s umbilical cord and placed him on his mother’s stomach after checking that his airway was clear.
But it would be another 90 minutes before the ambulance finally arrived to take the mother and child to the hospital.
“We kept the baby warm until the ambulance got here. They didn’t get here until after 2 and the baby was born at 12.42 am, they took a really, really long time to get here but I thank God that everything went well with her,” Edwards said.
When Guardian Media visited Edwards yesterday afternoon, she said Patrice and baby Leonardo were both doing well at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital.
Asked how she felt after the delivery, Edwards said she would do it again if she got the chance.
“I feel I could do it again because I have the confidence, I know what to do now,” she said with a smile.
Leonardo’s father, Renaldo Stewart, praised Edwards for her courage in delivering his son.
Stewart said although he and Patrice have two other children, he was shocked when he walked into the room after trying again to get assistance at the Coast Guard base and saw Leonardo being born.
“As I walked in the door, I saw the baby’s head was out and I froze, I couldn’t move. Thank God for my mother-in-law because she handled everything really well, I don’t know what I would have done if it was me alone,” he said.
