Life-saving newborn kits to feature in every St John Ambulance across WA in breakthrough program

When Katie Wheatley found herself unexpectedly giving birth on the side of the road in November, there were unknowns and anxieties that even as a paramedic, she wasn’t prepared for. Her contractions began at home in Chittering about 10.30pm and shortly afterwards she and her husband began the journey to hospital, preparing for what they expected would be a long labour similar to what she experienced with their now two-year-old, Abigail. As they discovered though, second daughter Imogen had no plan of drawing it out. “We got five minutes down the road and called triple-0, and while we were on the phone I had a contraction, and her head came out, and then a second contraction, and then she came out,” Mrs Wheatley told The West. Knowing hypothermia is a major risk for newborns, the parents sprung to action with towels and the car’s heater, but if they were elsewhere, things could have ended catastrophically. This danger is being tackled by St John Ambulance, which on Wednesday announced that critical newborn kits, funded by Telethon, will be added to every ambulance across the State. Used in tandem with an on-call midwife program launched in 2023, it is believed the Telethon kits will save lives. Neonatal mortality rates are nearly four times greater, and morbidity rates 5 per cent higher in unplanned out-of-hospital births compared to babies born in hospital, with hypothermia occurring in up to 80 per cent of cases. The kits mean support can be given immediately at birth and avoid risks associated with waiting until the baby arrives at hospital. “In certain cases, it’s a matter of life and death,” St John midwife manager and paramedic Melissa Gardiner said. “We know that babies that are born outside of hospital in an unplanned way are more likely to have risks to their health. A preventable risk is when they get too cold.” The ambulance kits contain warming cocoons, plastic neohelp suits, special thermometers to go under the baby’s armpit and tiny breathing masks. “Identifying that they’re cold is one thing, but we need the equipment to try and change that. So we will literally put that baby straight into the neohelp suit bag, and close it up onto the neck, so that we can maintain the heat that they have. And then we can add other warming devices around it to try and maintain that,” Ms Gardiner explained. “If they lose even one degree of their body temperature, it can increase their chances of death by 28 per cent which is huge.” A pre-term hypothermic baby can also go straight into a warming cocoon, which heats up to 40C. It an also be used to warm towels to dry the baby off. “Those pieces of equipment, will change the way that babies are managed in the pre-hospital environment,” Ms Gardiner said. Its a product of what Ms Gardiner deemed her life’s purpose, with her dedicating much of her decades-long medical career to helping mums and babies. “I definitely feel as though I was put on the planet to do this,” she said. “I am incredibly grateful to Telethon for supporting us, to be able to put this equipment into the ambulance and to be able to continue to support all of the paramedics and volunteers throughout WA that attend these women, it’s a special job.”