I was lucky enough to be able to have a water birth and, after a reasonably short labour, our little girl arrived. However as she emerged into the water, her cord snapped. Justina had been looking after me for a few hours at this point, giving me enough space to feel comfortable but plenty of encouragement and support at the end when needed. She sprung into action, all but diving into the pool to clamp my baby's cord with her fingers, before swiftly getting her out of the water and instructing the student midwife, also with us, to hit the alarm for the resus team and get clamps to stop any more blood loss from both baby and the placenta. She rushed our baby over to the other side of the room under the heated lamp and completed CPR. Thankfully, after 3 compressions and breaths, our little girl took her first breath. The resus team ended up taking 6 minutes to arrive, by which point Justina had already rescued our baby. Without her quick reactions and incredible knowledge of how to deal with the situation, the outcome could have been a lot worse.

The NICU team arrived shortly after and checked our baby over, and thankfully, Justina had responded so quickly that our daughter didn’t need to be taken to the neonatal unit or need a blood transfusion, which was a huge risk after potentially losing a lot of blood when she was born. Throughout the time I was in the pool and she was saving our baby, she was also reassuring myself and my partner, who had begun to panic at the lack of crying, and was continuing to teach the student through what was happening and what to do.

Once the NICU team had taken over, Justina came back to the pool and helped me out the water, and then got me through the next hour of birthing the placenta and lots of stitches! Just 6 hours after her birth, I was able to take our baby home. I genuinely cannot thank Justina enough, I truly believe if she had not been in the room with me that day, we could have been leaving the hospital under completely different circumstances.