Police help with the most adorable home delivery in Minnesota
Sometimes you've just got to roll with whatever the job demands each day. And for a couple of Apple Valley police officers, that meant a birth in a woman's home.
The two were called to the residence Wednesday afternoon, with the woman in active labor by the time they arrived, the police department wrote on Facebook.
Paramedics hadn't arrived, but the baby "was quickly making her way out," the post says – so the patrol officers helped deliver the baby at the home.
Lindsey Abigail was officially born at 2:30 p.m., and both she and the mother are doing fine, the department said.
"Delivering a baby is one of the most stressful yet rewarding experiences a police officer can have. Congratulations to everyone involved on a successful delivery!" the department wrote.
Births outside the hospital
Unplanned home births are rare, but they do happen (as this couple who told the entire story on Twitter found out. Parents has a list of what to do if you end up in that situation, via the American College of Nurse-Midwives.
Meanwhile planned outside-the-hospital births have become more popular in recent years.
Reuters Health said a 2014 study showed about 60,000 births outside the home in 2014 – that made up about 1.5 percent of all births in the U.S., up from about 1 percent a decade earlier.
The story said 38,000 of those births came at the home, with just under 90 percent of those home births having been planned.
Are births outside the hospital good for the baby?
NPR wrote about that question in 2015, finding the risk to the child is always pretty low in planned births – though risk of death for the baby is technically about twice as high when mothers planned a home or birthing center birth, compared to a hospital birth.
But there were some benefits. Mothers who gave birth outside a hospital were less likely to have been induced, and the chances of delivery with forceps or via C-section was lower. Mothers were also less likely to experience vaginal lacerations.
