A woman has given birth in the ticket hall of Mechelen train station. Fortunately for her, a midwife in training happened to be in the room, and helped her. Mother and daughter are both healthy.
SNCB employees Nancy and Luk were both on duty at the train station in Mechelen on Tuesday morning. When they were opening the hall with the ticket counters at 07:00, the woman was brought in.
"We suddenly saw people from Securail showing up with a crying woman," Lukt told VRT. "We first thought that something bad had happened, but it turned out that she had to give birth."
They asked the SCNB employees if they had something for the woman to lie on. "We brought her in behind the ticket counter 2, where she gave birth. The baby, a girl, was born before the emergency services arrived."
Applause
Coincidentally, a student training to be a midwife was in the area. "She provided fantastic support to the mother during her delivery," Nancy said. "The baby was born in just 15 minutes, and everything went smoothly. The little girl immediately started crying. It is certainly a very special way to start my day like this."
The employees closed the door of the entire area so people could not come inside the ticket hall. When the emergency services arrived, they administered the first care and took the mother and baby to the hospital afterwards.
"We do not know who the mother was, but she was certainly living in the neighbourhood," said Luk. "I have three children myself, so I have experienced births, but not at work of course."
He stressed that the midwife in training was very calm and had everything under control. "When the mother and child were taken away, the student received thunderous applause from everyone present."
