You should probably file this under Don’t Try This At Home, but sometimes one has no choice. Pressed for time, a British man delivered his wife’s baby with the help of instructions uploaded to YouTube.
This is why we love the Internet.
Marc Stephens deserves equal credit for foresight and grace under fire (for the unflappable latter he credits the Royal Navy). The BBC reports Stephens googled “how to deliver a baby” as a precaution the moment his wife went into labor.
His cramming* session paid off for when his wife reached the critical five-minute contraction stage (the stage they tell you to head for the hospital or call your midwife), the Stephens’ midwife was a bit busy. The baby would arrive before the ambulance did.
One of the YouTube videos Stephens viewed was an instructional video from YouTube’s ExpertVillage channel, which illustrates in eerie (and kind of icky) plastic dummy realism how to deliver a baby in a taxicab.
While this is a story with obvious human interest quality, it is also serves as a nice example (if you’ll allow to me to cheapen it) of how businesses can both serve the community and gain valuable exposure. The expert instruction on YouTube, now getting international attention, was demonstrated by Laurie Fremgen, who runs Austin Midwifery Services.
While the video itself is a testament to local parents-to-be that Fremgen knows what she’s doing, the attention her video receives from the Stephens’ story just significantly upped her profile. The example also serves as a testament to the power of the how-to testimonial. When people use the internet mostly as an information utility, business-related how-tos can provide a much needed branding and advertising boost.
*The word “cram” seems crassly appropriate but is necessary in lieu of the Anglican synonym “swot,” used by Stephens, which my meager American vocabulary forced me to look up.
