Freeway baby’s lucky day

Press, 24 September 1983, Page 12

Freeway baby’s lucky day

NZPA New York When the labour pains start two weeks early and the only route to the hospital is a jam-packed freeway, what do you do? In a pinch, you could head for the hospital, pull off the highway and wait for a Chinese-speaking obstetrician to come along. The Manhattan-bound traffic was crawling along the Long Island expressway one morning recently when Wyai Heung Chan, aged 25, began feeling labour pains. She and her husband, Hoi Wah Chan, aged 31, entrusted their daughter, aged two, to a neighbour and set out from their home in the Long Island city section of Queens. But long before they

made it to Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan, they realised they had to pull over and began preparing to deliver the baby themselves. Then began the coincidences: ® The motorists who stopped to help included an obstetrician, Dr Kwok Y. Miu. © He turned out to be the partner of their regular doc- ® With him was his wife, Natalie, a registered nurse. ® He and his wife were able to speak Chinese to Mrs Chan, who had little English. Baby Derek Chan emerged, weighing 3kg. Mother and child were doing fine at the hospital a few hours later.