A mother has opened up about how she and her newborn baby Cruz nearly both died during a terrifying home birth.
Mum-of-three Natalie Beecham went into labour within minutes of her water breaking in her Highland Park home in the Gold Coast, Queensland, six weeks ago.
A home delivery wasn’t the plan for Ms Beecham, who was 41 weeks pregnant, but after her water broke in the laundry, she was experiencing contractions by the time she got to her bedroom.
Paramedics Max Westerhof and Brooke Musty arrived at Ms Beecham’s house within 20 minutes.
‘The moment we knew it was serious was after the initial birth of the head there was a delay,’ Mr Westerhof told the Gold Coast Bulletin.
One of baby Cruz’s shoulders was caught above his mother’s pubic bone, and he became stuck for a full ten minutes.
Cruz was eventually delivered but came out without a heartbeat and wasn’t breathing.
Meanwhile, Ms Beecham was also suffering severe haemorrhaging.
The two paramedics managed to produce a heart rate in the baby boy within a minute of him entering the world, but his breathing was still poor.
Both Ms Beecham and Cruz were then rushed to Gold Coast University Hospital.
Nurses took Ms Beecham straight to the operating theatre as she’d lost about half of her blood in labour.
Miraculously, Ms Beecham and her baby boy made a full recovery and were reunited with their hero paramedics on Friday, six weeks after Cruz’s birth.
‘I was very scared… words can’t describe… I’m so grateful,’ she said.
‘The fact they acted as quickly as they did means both Cruz and I are here and able to have this meeting today. If they didn’t act as quickly as they did it might be very different.
She said the paramedic’s faces would remain in her memory forever.
She added Cruz is a happy and healthy baby and is her little miracle.