Woman goes into Tesco for cat food and comes out with a newborn baby
'I never expected to do that on a Monday morning!'
A woman popped into her local Tesco to pick up some cat food and paracetamol and came out with a whole lot more.
Much to her surprise, Lauren Ewings, ended up giving birth to her third child, a boy, at the supermarket in Devon.
She had woken up on Monday morning in some pain but assumed it was Braxton Hicks, sometimes known as false labour pains.
The 27-year-old drove her eldest to school, then decided to swing past a Tesco Superstore in Tiverton to grab the pet food and painkiller.
But as Lauren walked through the doors her waters broke, so she rushed to the store’s disabled toilets to clean herself up.
She then called her partner Alex Hastad to ask him to walk down to the supermarket and drive her and their car home.
But things were moving much quicker than she anticipated. Within ten minutes of arriving at the toilets she started to feel a heavy pressure ‘down below’.
‘So I called my mum,’ she explained. ‘She called the ambulance ’cause I was in so much pain. My auntie, who was with her at the time, called Tesco Tiverton to try and get someone to come and help me.’
Thankfully a member of staff, Lisa Haymes, soon turned up to help.
‘Two minutes later, I crouched down and he started coming out,’ Lauren continued. ‘Two minutes later, I delivered the placenta and then about 15 minutes later, the paramedics arrives.
‘I went in a 9.10am and he was born by 9.40am. It was really quick, especially because my two previous children were c-sections and this was my first natural birth so I didn’t have any pain relief or anything.
She added: ‘I never expected to do that on a Monday morning!’
The baby, who has been named Edward and was born on Lauren’s middle child’s fourth birthday, arrived around four weeks before his due date and weighed six pounds two.
Lauren said they stayed in hospital for a few days because Edward was a little jaundiced and doctors suspected he might also have a heart murmur but he is otherwise fine.
She thanked the staff at Tesco Tiverton for their help.
‘The Tesco staff were all in shock and really excited. We’ve got a couple of friends that work there and they were talking about it all day.
‘They were brilliant, the staff were fantastic.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.