Grandmother delivers daughter's baby in car in Hastings

A grandmother delivered her daughter's baby in the front seat of her car as her water's broke on the way to hospital in Hastings on Monday (February 27).
Baby Joseph Junior Peter Harper-Goldsmith pictured with L-R Joseph Harper (dad,) Emma Stocker (mum) and Jeanette Stocker (nan). SUS-170203-080130001Baby Joseph Junior Peter Harper-Goldsmith pictured with L-R Joseph Harper (dad,) Emma Stocker (mum) and Jeanette Stocker (nan). SUS-170203-080130001
Baby Joseph Junior Peter Harper-Goldsmith pictured with L-R Joseph Harper (dad,) Emma Stocker (mum) and Jeanette Stocker (nan). SUS-170203-080130001

Jeanette Stocker got a mile or so from Emma’s home when she had to stop and deliver baby Joseph Junior Harper-Goldsmith by herself with no prior experience of midwifery.

“We call him J-J but I’m going to call him C-C as he was born outside Costcutters,” Jeanette said.

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Jeanette, 49, picked up Emma, 27, from her home on Priory Road to take her the Conquest Hospital to have her third child but Emma’s waters broke as they were going down Mount Pleasant Road.

She instantly pulled over, jumped out of the car, opened the passenger door and saw the baby’s head was crowning.

“The baby came out with a little cry and then everything stopped,” Jeanette said.

“I rubbed him vigorously, put a coat on him and smacked the bottom of his feet then he started crying and so did we.”

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The ambulance soon came to take mum and baby to hospital, where he was weighed as eight pounds. They soon came home happy and healthy, with Jeanette’s quick-thinking to thank.

“The hospital nurses said my mum did a really good job,” Emma’s sister Zoe said.

Jeanette, who has four children with 11 grandchildren and has only missed one birth, said those experiences helped her deliver J-J.

“Having so many grandchildren and watching them being born, that’s the only reason I was able to do it,” she said modestly.

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Jeanette said many people walked past wondering what was going on as there was a lot of screaming and blood.

“They thought I was hurting her but I said, ‘no it’s okay she’s having a baby,’” she said.

“Then they just walked off and I thought, ‘cheers!’”

Emma had had a few false alarms with the pregnancy so there was some delay in going to the hospital as she did not want to go through it all to be sent home, Jeanette said.

But J-J turned out to be the ‘baby that cried wolf’ and decided he was coming out on the way to the Conquest.

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