Mother gave birth on sofa with two paracetamol as local hospital was full

‘This baby is actually going to be born at home. This is my worst nightmare’, new mother recalls

A mother says she was forced to give birth at home on her sofa with just paracetamol for pain relief because her nearest hospital maternity ward was full.

Eilish McKinney was told she would need to travel 35 miles from her home in Nassington, Northamptonshire to Leicester Hospital as there were no beds free at Peterborough City Hospital on 20 September.

Ms McKinney, said she thought this was a "joke" and, at that point, she was "trying very hard not to push" after her waters broke.

Eilish McKinney with her son Persy and fiance Tom Blackman (BBC)

Speaking of her decision not to make the hour-long journey, she recalled thinking: "This baby is actually going to be born at home. This is my worst nightmare."

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Ms McKinney added: "At that instant, I'd never felt so sick in all my life as that sheer panic goes through you."

With help from partner Tom Blackman, Ms McKenny's son Persy was born safe and well.

"She did this with just two paracetamol," Mr Blackman said.

"That's what I find astonishing - she did it by herself, on the living room sofa because the hospital let us down", Mr Blackman added.

Ms McKinney says ‘you try not to think about the what ifs, but it could have ended very differently’ (BBC)

North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust said it was sorry to hear the birth did not go to plan.

Chief nurse Jo Bennis added: "The safety of babies and parents is an absolute priority for us, and occasionally it is sometimes necessary to ask mothers to use alternative maternity units should ours reach capacity.”

Ms McKinney’s experience comes amid an NHS in crisis, with patients reporting long waits for ambulances and in A&E.

July’s ambulance response times for the most urgent 999 calls were the worst on record, with 152,000 ambulance crew hours lost to delays in June.

In August the Independent reported that some 4,000 patients were estimated to have come to severe harm due to handover delays in June – prompting health leaders to warn that the delays are the biggest safety risk facing the NHS.

That same month, a 90-year-old woman was forced to wait 40 hours for an ambulance, only to be stuck in the vehicle outside of A&E for the night waiting for an available bed.

Steven Syms from St Austwell in Cornwall said the NHS system is “totally broken” as he explained his mother’s distressing ordeal waiting for emergency services following a fall.

Mr Syms said he called 999 for his mother Daphne on a Sunday evening but paramedics did not arrive until the Tuesday afternoon.