Caitlin Burke, from Tamworth, Staffordshire, jumped to her mother’s aid when her waters broke suddenly at around 5am. With ambulance staff on the phone to guide her, she calmly helped parent Tara Knightley through the two-hour labour, according to the Birmingham Mail.
Caitlin, the eldest of five children, even managed to unravel the umbilical cord wrapped around the baby. Once her new sister, named Elsa-Monet, was delivered and in her mother’s arms, Burke went to school. Caitlin said she was “a bit scared and shaky at first” but is now so inspired that she wants to be a midwife when she is older.
“When my sister was born, I was really happy. I think she’s really cute and I love her very much,” she said. “My friends at school and teachers were really happy and proud of me.”
Knightley told the Birmingham Mail she started getting contractions in the early morning, so her partner left to take the youngest child to his sister’s house. But her water broke within 10 minutes of him leaving.
She said she knew from experience the labour would not take long and told her eldest daughter to ring an ambulance. “I was screaming in pain but Caitlin was calm throughout,” Ms Knightley said. “When the head was showing, I thought to myself ‘I need to stop screaming because my 11-year-old daughter is seeing me’.
“I couldn’t do what Caitlin has done at my age, let alone at the age of 11… She got the towels, she then helped remove the cord because it was wrapped around the baby. And she helped to rub and stimulate her because she wasn’t crying.”
Caitlin and her new baby sister are inseparable now, says Knightley. “We are all so proud of her.”
The story was first published on The Independent.