A COUPLE have told of the moment they had to pull over and deliver their baby in a car on Oxford's ring road.

John and Rachel Willis were racing to Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital but baby Lucy beat them to it.

And much to the horror of the couple, she came out the wrong way in the breech position - as paramedics told the panicking dad what to do down the phone.

An ambulance arrived for the final stage as baby Lucy was born perfectly healthy and weighing 6lb.

Twenty four hours after the roadside drama, the happy and relieved couple were settling in at home in Drayton, near Abingdon, with their new addition.

Mr Willis, 36, admitted: "It was the most frightening thing in my life."

Mrs Willis, 32, said: "I was petrified, especially when my husband told me the legs were coming out and not the head... but now I've got a lovely baby girl.

"John just kept really calm, bless him, although afterwards he told me how scared he was."

When Mrs Willis started having contractions at about 11am on Tuesday, the couple gathered their things and made a dash for the hospital.

However, she started to give birth in their BMW as they drove from their home in Abingdon Road along the A34 to Oxford.

Mr Willis said: "I was using the handsfree kit talking to the paramedics and they were telling me to get off the road as quickly as possible. I was driving at the time and trying to focus on the road, but I thought the best thing to do would be pull over and call an ambulance.

"I jumped out of the car and into the middle of the road and the guy on the other end of the phone was telling me what to do.

"When I opened the passenger door to Rachel, I could already see what I thought was a head, but when I looked I realised it was actually the baby's bottom and legs."

"Once I told the guy that it was not a head but a bottom, even in my panicky state, I could tell his voice had changed. I thought there and then there is a problem here. I was worried she might die.

"The first thing they told me was to slow it down by pressing down on her because we didn't want her to come out too quick.

"I was doing that, holding the mobile and holding the baby. I have never been so scared in all my life. Rachel was really panicking."

A breech birth is potentially dangerous to the baby as it can lead to suffocation on the umbilical cord.

Thankfully, paramedics arrived just as Lucy, the couple's second child, was arriving.

Mr Willis said: "It certainly was a very eventful birth. Our last child Oliver, who is now two, came after 15 hours - this one only took 15 minutes."

Proud grandmother Wendy Green, 60, from Bayworth, was speechless when her daughter called her as the baby was being born on the roadside.

Mr Green said: "When she said: 'I'm having the baby in a layby', I couldn't believe it. We were a bit worried, but now we know the baby is healthy, we've all taken to calling her Layby Lucy."

Oxford-based childbirth expert and author, Sheila Kitzinger, said: "Breech births can be very dangerous, especially if the mother pushes. He must have kept his head in all that traffic to help deliver the baby, I'd like to know what the mother made of all of it. I send my congratulations to them both."