{"id":276480,"date":"2022-09-21T16:30:18","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T21:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=276480"},"modified":"2022-09-20T18:02:45","modified_gmt":"2022-09-20T23:02:45","slug":"baby-born-highway-phone-charger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-born-highway-phone-charger\/","title":{"rendered":"Dad cuts umbilical cord with phone charger after baby born on the side of highway"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Emily Waddell of Evansville, Indiana, wasn\u2019t too worried when she felt her contractions increasing, but just to be safe she called her husband to come home from work \u2013 she felt she still had time. And, having given birth before, she thought she knew what to expect. \u201cEven at that point, whenever I told him to come home, I wasn’t even positive that the baby was coming,\u201d she told <\/span>WEVV<\/span><\/a>, noting that her contractions at the time were eight minutes apart. Most mothers are told to head to the hospital when contractions are five minutes apart.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But her feelings about the urgency of her situation changed shortly after they got on the highway. \u201cWhenever we were getting on the interstate, I said out loud, \u2018I do not want to have a baby in the truck.\u2019 Stephan was like, \u2018Don\u2019t worry, you\u2019re not going to.\u2019\u201d But her labor only intensified, and soon she instructed Stephan to pull over on the side of I-69 and call 911. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo we get to the interstate and we are moving. And that\u2019s whenever Emily kind of grabs ahold of my arm and she was like, \u2018You have to pull over NOW,\u2019\u201d Stephan said in an interview.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was at that point that Emily realized her labor clock had run out, and she could feel her baby\u2019s head coming out. Stephan pulled off the interstate and ran over to Emily\u2019s side, preparing to catch the baby in his shirt, knowing an ambulance wouldn\u2019t arrive in time. \u201cWe knew the baby was coming. We knew it was just us there,\u201d said Stephan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

READ:<\/strong>\u00a0Premature baby born weighing just 212 grams is now a healthy two-year-old<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

And it was there on the side of I-69, 35 minutes after the start of contractions, that baby Reagan arrived, weighing 7 pounds and 10 ounces and still in the sac.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 911 operator asked Stephan whether he had anything to cut the cord, and Emily recounted how they used what they had on hand. \u201cStephan used two phone chargers to tie off the umbilical cord while I suctioned her mouth and nose out with my mouth – which is very difficult when you just pushed a baby on the side of the road,\u201d said Emily in a <\/span>Facebook post<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n