A doctor’s practical guide to delivering a baby, in case you ever find yourself in the woods (or the snow, or an elevator, you get it) alone with a pregnant person and you’re literally the only option
1) Call for help.
Look, this is an emergency guide; don’t be a hero. Call for help, and if there is anyone around with some medical expertise defer to them. Call 911 if you can to get medical personnel coming, and only if you’re alone and this is all happening before anyone will get there, then move to the next step.
2) Get the labouring person to lay on their back, legs bent, and get between their legs. Undergarments off, and if you’ve got fabric you can spare, rip a strip off in your non dominant hand and place very gentle pressure on the perineum (skin under the head).
3) If you see an amount of the head that is thinner that the width of their palm, get them to bear down and push like they were trying to have a poo, while you count to ten 3 times in their contraction, with a big breath in between. Try not to touch too much and let them rest in between. If most of the head is out tell them to push gently, and very gently guide the head ever so slightly downwards with your dominant hand.
4) IMPORTANT. Once the whole head is out, run a gentle finger around the neck of the baby to make sure the cord isn’t wrapped around it’s neck.
5) Very gently sandwich your hands on the top and bottom of the head (the head will be sideways at this point so it’s like you’re covering their ears from a swear word that mom is probably shouting at this point 😉) and with her push, GENTLY (gently!!) pull downward toward the floor until you get the top shoulder out. Then GENTLY pull upward to do the same with the bottom shoulder and, leaving one hand to support the neck, grab the legs as they come out with the other (not the belly, you’re more likely to drop it that way).
6) Put the baby on mom’s belly. DON’T touch anything until you see a gush of blood and the cord lengthening by itself (I mean it don’t touch until then!). Then you can get mom to push and VERY, VERY, VERY GENTLY apply steady downward traction on the cord to deliver the placenta (it is going to look gross). DO NOT PULL TOO HARD OR YOU CAN RIP THE CORD OFF WITH THE PLACENTA STILL INSIDE and if you’re in the woods alone, THAT’S NO GOOD. It should come smoothly, if mom has delivered fast enough that help didn’t have time to arrive.
7) Keep the baby warm with mom in cloth or a jacket or a sweater, and keep the cord attached, and wrap the placenta in whatever you can. Emergency help should be able to get there with plenty of time to cut the cord, so it’s ok to leave it attached.
8) DRINK ALCOHOL, because you just delivered a baby in the woods and you’re probably going to need it.
So, now you know!
