NursingLink

News >> Browse Articles >> General Health

News >> Browse Articles >> Offbeat

News >> Browse Articles >> Patient Care

6-Year-Old Helps Mom Give Emergency Birth

FUQUAY-VARINA — As the ambulance raced to her door, Briana Johnson knew she’d be having her baby on her bedroom floor, assisted by the only helper in the house: her 6-year-old daughter.

At 3 a.m. Sept. 16, Johnson delivered her own infant while Diyana scampered around fetching towels, trying to be brave as she learned first-hand where babies come from.

“I was asleep and my mama woke me up,” said Diyana, a first-grader at Lincoln Heights Elementary. “She had stomach pains, and then she had the baby. I helped by getting the baby a blanket and opening the door for the rescue squad.”

Johnson, 25, felt mild contractions early that day and called her doctor from her home in Fuquay-Varina. Then her water broke as she stepped out of bed, and she called her father for a ride. When it became clear the baby wouldn’t wait, she called an ambulance.

“I put the phone beside me on the floor because the pain was so excruciating,” said Johnson, who is a nurse at Raleigh’s Tammy Lynn Center. "I told them over the phone, ’I’m actually holding her head in.’ Her head came out and I said, “OK, I’m looking at her face.’”

Diyana, meanwhile, ran for supplies and jumped on the bed to watch from a safe distance. But she told her mother she didn’t want to cry while she was in so much pain and kept her composure.

Meanwhile, Johnson’s father, Torris Jones, and his wife Wanda were racing to the house. It was only a 5-minute drive, but when they got there, the emergency crew was already on the scene. Jones saw his granddaughter waiting at the door, motioning to them.

When he got to his daughter, she was holding Madisyn, 51/2 pounds.

“I just thought that was awesome,” Jones said. “She said, ‘I almost cried when my mama was screaming. You told me to be a big girl, and I was a big girl.’”

When Johnson talked everything through with Diyana, she seemed relaxed and unfazed.

“I don’t think it scarred her too bad,” Johnson said, adding with a smile, “She might not want children.”

This story previously ran in The News & Observer.

josh.shaffer@nando.com or 919-829-4818

---

To see more of the Cary News or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.carynews.com/.

Copyright © 2009, The Cary News, N.C.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Just for Fun:
Medicine is the Best Laughter: Hilarious Nursing Jokes
8 Things You Should Never Say to a Patient
Inspirational Quotes Every Nurse Should Read
Florence Nightingale’s Resume

---