FRONTIER
the phone with us until the paramedics arrived about 15 minutes after Indie was born, and was always checking in with us and I remember him saying to Jack to be ready to deliver the placenta if needed,” Libby says.
“Luckily he didn’t have to do that job as well. But he did get to cut the cord once the paramedics arrived.” WHILE it’s rare, Libby isn’t the only mum in the Territory to have been coached through the birth of a baby at home.
The NT is one of Australia’s largest regions, stretching an enormous 1,349,129 sqkm from the red dirt of Central Australia to unspoilt fishing spots on the Tiwi Islands.
About 229,000 people call the Territory home, with a third of them living in rural and remote areas, without easy access to major hospitals or urgent medical assistance.
With this in mind, the NT Health Department asks Territory mums to travel to major centres at 37 weeks.
Still, babies don’t work on a timeline and some often come early and very quickly. That’s where Stork Club comes in, explains St John Ambulance NT emergency communications centre officer in charge Rob Webster.
Stork Club is the name given to a special group of emergency medical dispatchers who have delivered babies over the phone.
Rob’s been with St John’s since the start of 2010, and in communications since 2012.
When a call to triple-0 is made, first it goes through to Telstra, who ask the caller what their emergency is – fire, police, or ambulance.
Those who answer ambulance in the NT are connected to the communications centre in Berrimah.
There, dispatchers use the “Medical Priority Dispatch System”, to rank how serious the emergency is.
Heart attacks get preference over broken toes, for example.
“Just imagine a husband calling triple-0 for his wife in labour with their third child,” Rob says.
“Now, ideally we would have the paramedics there within a just few minutes, however, sometimes babies just don’t want to wait.
“Our call takers can give him all the instructions required to help mum, and dad, deliver that baby regardless of how it presents, breech births, etc, as well as deal with any complications with mum or bub that could arise.”
When it comes to birth, Rob says about nine out of 10 babies are happy to wait to get to hospital but every so often there’s a bub who’s keen to see the world.
“Childbirth has been happening for as long as we’ve been around, its not necessarily life threatening,” he says.
“We’d prefer to be there in case something isn’t right, just in case.
“Those first seconds are really vital. That immediate response is potentially life saving.”
Having someone on the line can help calm parents down too, Rob explains, as they are reassured someone is on their way.
Even if calltakers ask a lot of questions, Rob says it won’t ever delay the ambulance, it’s already on their way.
“They’re getting as much information as possible to send to the paramedics,” Rob says. IN June this year, emergency medical dispatcher Jana Lumsdon helped a Darwin dad deliver his son on the family’s living room floor.
In a flurry of excitement, the father rang triple-0 to request an ambulance, not knowing his newborn was just a minutes away from entering the world.
Jana remembers she was on a day shift, and the dad seemed calm on the phone at first.
In the background, Jana could make out the babble of an older child and the discomfort of the expectant mum.
“Over a period of about four to five (minutes) it went from ‘we’re going to get to the hospital to get this is out’ to the baby being born,” Jana says.
“It’s not uncommon for a second baby to come quicker.
“I was trying to keep him calm – to give him tasks, make her comfortable, get towels – and keep calm myself.”
With the ambulance crew already en route, Jana asked a question she’d asked many times over her three years with St Johns.
“Can you see any part of the baby now?” she queried.
Only this time, the voice on the other end of the phone answered: “yes”.
The nervous Darwin dad told Jana he could see his baby’s head crowning, and she knew the bub wasn’t going to wait any for the paramedics to arrive.
“In past calls, we hadn’t had anyone say they could see the head,” she said.
“We train for this, and I was using all these scripts that we have in place.”
Just a few minutes later, the dad brought his baby son into the world.
“I remember the dad shouting, ‘the baby’s out, the baby’s out’,” Jana says.
Jana held her breath as the newborn entered the world, waiting for him to cry out — and soon the tiny Territorian opened his lungs.
“My heart was beating quite fast,” she says.
“Their was a lot of joy over the phone.”
In a second, one patient became two.
Jana’s focus split — making sure both mum and bub were healthy and well.
Soon after, the paramedics walked through the door, bundling the new family into the ambulance to take them to the hospital. SAM Powers has only been an emergency medical dispatcher for 18 months, and has already helped deliver two babies.
Both times, it was the expectant dad who called up and helped deliver the bub.
He says it’s a pretty stressful situation to begin with, because so many things can go wrong, and the mother-to-be is usually in a in a lot of pain.
“There’s a lot of commotion, the call generally starts off really crazy,” he says “But it ends up happy.” Sam says the baby calls are the two best calls he’s taken.
“A lot of the calls we take aren’t positive,” he says.
“It’s pretty rewarding, you’ve got a big grin. The baby calls are definitely my favourites”
Another Stork Club member, Lana Harman, coached a 13-year-old boy through the birth of his baby brother, as his dad tended to his mum in the background of the call.
Lana agreed with Sam, say
ing the birth is still one of the best calls she’s ever taken, but the seriousness of the conversation isn’t lost on her.
“I was giving all the instructions to the teenager im talking to, and he said ‘baby’s head just popped out’,” Lana recalls.
“He was actually calm, and he followed my instructions, I think it was dad what was more panicked.”
Relaying instructions via the teenager, Lana was able to help the expectant mum deliver her newborn.
“It was all happening quite fast, and it was actually quite exciting,” Lana says.
“They usually get to the hospital before baby is delivered.”
Lana says she wasn’t scared, because if something went wrong she knew how to deal with it.
Luckily for both Lana and the new family, the birth went seamlessly.
“Not all the calls we take are this positive,” she said. JUST a few months ago, little Indie turned two, and her birthdays always bring back a flood of memories for Libby and Jack. “I am always so grateful that everything turned out as well as it did. But I do think back to that night, and wish that it all played out so differently from the beginning. That I had had the support from the hospital staff that I needed and was not sent home,” Libby says. “Luckily our story turned out to be a wonderful one that we will get to share with Indie for their rest of our lives, but I always hope that no one has ever had to experience this and it end in tragedy.” The Zuccoli couple is now expecting their second child, and will be moving to the Sunshine Coast before having the bub. While grateful of the help she got from St John, Libby is urging women to speak up during birth if they feel the need, and to not be afraid “You know your body better than anyone else. I did not want to go home from the hospital, I was in so much pain and was so frightened to go home because I didn’t know how I was supposed to deal with that pain at home — no option of pain relief,” she says. “There are so many things that can go wrong during labour, and to birth at home with any of these things occurring — not only would that change the families life forever, but also the paramedics and call staff that would then be responding to that emergency.”