Woman gives birth to girl on Chennai road

CHENNAI: A 26-year-old woman gave birth to a girl on the road near the state secretariat while waiting for an autorickshaw to go to hospital on Thursday. Tamil Nadu, where 90% of deliveries happen in health centres, clinics or hospitals, is ranked third in institutional deliveries in the country, after Kerala and Goa.
Muthumari, a resident of the Sathya Nagar slum, was waiting with husband P Mohan for an autorikshaw when she could bear the labour pains no longer and slumped.Mohan, a mason, said she developed pains around 7.30pm. "Nobody had a vehicle to shift her to hospital. We had to wait for an autorickshaw," he said.
An ambulance was requisitioned but before it reached Muthumari had given birth to a girl. Women from the slum and some transgenders, who were passing by, helped her.
"I heard her shrill cry, and I knew she would deliver soon," said P Santhi, a neighbour. The mother and the child were taken to Gosha Hospital in Triplicane, where they are said to be doing fine.
Mohan and Muthumari have a three-year-old daughter, Sandhya. Mohan said he could not take his wife to a doctor early because he could not skip work. "If I take a day's leave, I lose my daily wage. I thought I will take her to the hospital after returning from work. But by the time I came home, she had developed labour pains. I didn't know what to do since there was no vehicle there. We had to wait for an autorickshaw," he said.
Nearly 200 women formed a circle around Muthumari, as she and the newborn were attended to by a few women. Traffic slowed down near the War Memorial signal as motorists stopped to find out what had happened. When they learned that a woman had given birth on the road, some of them wanted to have a glimpse of the child. A few offered money to the couple. The women who cordoned off the space around Muthumari had a tough time driving away children from the slum who tried to take a peep at the newborn.
Even as the paramedical staff who came in the ambulance were shifting the woman and the newborn to the vehicle, Mohan was seen calling up his employer, requesting for a day's leave on Friday.
EMRI's 108 ambulance service, backed by the state government, transports women in labour to hospitals. On many occasions, women have delivered in the ambulances. Till April this year, 488 children were born in ambulances. "We have all the facilities and our paramedic are trained to handle complications. In fact, we have had no maternal or infant deaths on ambulances so far," said Sridhar, CEO, EMRI.