Scotland: woman gives birth in casino car park

Maybury Casino car park

A woman in Edinburgh has given birth in a casino car park.

Yvonne McColm was close to giving birth last Wednesday when a family friend attempted to drive her and her husband Ross to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

Primary school teacher Yvonne, 35, and her husband, found themselves stranded in midday traffic only minutes into their drive to the hospital.

Aware that they were not going to make it in time, the couple decided to roll the dice and took a detour to a quiet section of a casino car park.

The couple hoped to call an ambulance and wait in the quiet spot of the Maybury Casino car park until it arrived.

Waiting in their red Volkswagen Polo the baby (later named Freya), however, had other ideas.

Yvonne told the Edinburgh Evening News: “We were actually being driven by a friend of mine as Ross doesn’t drive and we had our older daughter, Amy, with us. As soon as we got into the car park, I realised the birth was very close and I told my friend she would need to get Amy out the way.

“We got her out then Ross came round to my side of the car, put the seat back, and the ambulance woman Ross was speaking to on the phone was asking if I felt the need to push. I was just screaming, ‘I can’t do this’. The woman was saying to Ross, ‘just tell her to . . .’ and the next thing the baby just appeared. I think I only pushed about three times.”

The couple say that the birth only took a matter of minutes, which is very different to their older child, Amy, who required 48-hours of labour.

Yvonne and Ross with their baby, Freya and older daughter, Amy. Picture: Lesley Martin

However, the issues with her first born meant that there were serious health concerns with this birth. Her first daughter “ended up having to spend time in a neo-natal unit and I was suffering from pre-eclampsia at the time,” Yvonne said. “Which is when you get high blood pressure and swelling.

“So I’d been seeing a midwife for weeks before Freya’s birth as a precaution. They had been monitoring me really closely and there were a whole lot of notes in my record for things that would need to be put in place to make sure I was going to be healthy.

“So all of that was going through my head as well – I was thinking, ‘what if I’m going to lose blood?’ and ‘I should be in hospital’.”

Once the ambulance arrived, they checked and both mother and daughter were well.

She said: “My first labour was 48 hours and this was probably about two. The birth itself was maybe a matter of seconds. It’s actually quite nice because now we have a story for years to come – for when she’s 18 or on her wedding day. Something to look back on.”

However, for her husband Ross, 33, it was a little more traumatic. The waiter, who works at Edinburgh’s Kyloe restaurant, said: “I was trying to reassure her but at the same time in my mind I was going, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing’.

“But in a situation like that it was just a case of, right, this is what’s happening, I have to deal with it. Last time, I didn’t have time to be at home with my wife because of her having to stay in hospital so it’s fantastic to be home with them now.”