Guided by Mumbai doctor on phone, teacher helps woman deliver baby in park

Mysuru: In a heart-warming development Guided over the phone by a doctor from Mumbai, a high school teacher helped deliver a girl at a Mysuru park on Tuesday, saving the mother and her child in the nick of time.

The expectant mother, Mallika, a 35-year-old tribal from Gonikoppal in Kodagu district, was in the park opposite Mini Vidhana Soudha in Nazarabad when she contracted labour pain around 8.45am. Her two other children, a boy aged 4 and a girl aged 2, were also with her when she started bleeding.

As she screamed for help, a few passers-by and vendors called up ambulances and government hospitals but no help was forthcoming. As luck would have it, physical education teacher Shobha Prakash arrived just then to catch a bus to school at Navilur in Nanjangud taluk. Passers-by appealed to her to help and seeing the plight of the woman, Shobha stopped.

“I was not aware of how to go about a delivery. But a youth by the name of Karthik who was at the spot connected me with a doctor from Mumbai. He guided me on the procedure,” Shobha, a resident of JSS Layout, told media. “What pained me is that when I requested women who were watching us to help me, no one came forward. Initially, I was scared. But I was determined to help her,” she added.

“I managed to take the baby out on doctor’s instruction but wasn’t aware of how to snap the umbilical cord. Thankfully, an ambulance arrived and the medical staff helped me. After the delivery, I gave the woman hot water from my flask and she was transported to the hospital. During the course of delivery, the woman’s 2-year-old daughter clung to her and did not leave,” the physical education teacher further added. 

The teacher later visited the hospital to see the baby and mother and gave her Rs 2,000. The woman, a native of Aruvattoku, had quarreled with her husband and left him four months ago. The woman had spent all the money she had and was working at a hotel for the past three days.