A new mom is sharing her labor experience in hopes that “it could help another woman.”
Shayanna Markham gave birth to a baby girl in June, thirty minutes after being checked for labor at Kaiser Hospital in Vacaville, California. In an interview with TODAY.com, she shared that she was 5 cm dilated during her examination and had contractions but felt “pressured to go home.”
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“I was only 37 weeks pregnant, so I was scared,” she explained. “The nurses checked my contractions which were 7 to 9 minutes apart and lasted more than a minute.”
Markham’s sister Surena shared a TikTok video of the experience in which Markham is seen arriving back home from the hospital with the caption, “When your sister is 5 centimeters dilated, and they send her home, and she has the baby at home 30 minutes later.”
Using surveillance camera footage, the video shows Markham’s husband, Anthony, rushing back to his vehicle to grab his phone to call 911 after the home delivery. In another part of the video, EMTs put Markham on a stretcher to go back to the hospital.
“There was no stopping her from coming out,” she recalled to the outlet about the moment she realized she was giving birth. “I got really quiet — there was no screaming. I pushed and then caught my daughter.”
While Markham shared with KPHO-TV that their baby named Harper is now a month old and healthy, she hopes other expectant mothers won’t be “put in the same situation” after her experience.
“It didn’t help me, but if it could help another woman, then I’m glad it happened. I’m just glad me and Harper are okay,” she said.
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In a statement to TODAY.com, a Kaiser spokesperson shared that “deliveries do happen unexpectedly on occasion.”
“Our first priority is always the safety of our patients. While we can’t speak to this specific event due to patient privacy, deliveries do happen unexpectedly on occasion. We recognize the families and thank the first responders who are able to manage these situations,” the statement read.”We take our patients’ concerns seriously, and when we learn of concerns, we follow up to apologize, listen and respond,” the statement added. “Our physicians or certified midwives screen patients when they arrive based on multiple medical criteria and, on a case-by-case basis, determine if a laboring woman is ready to begin her stay with us. If a patient is reluctant to return home, we offer them to stay and be re-evaluated in a specific time frame. We do encourage laboring moms to walk as a standard practice to help labor along unless prohibited by a medical condition.”
Kaiser Permanente did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
“It’s bittersweet,” Markham said. “I am frustrated that the birth happened this way but I am happy that my daughter is okay. It could have been worse.”
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Source: HIS Education