A WOMAN who gave birth to a baby girl on the street early Sunday morning said she was grateful to passers-by who gave their helping hands, the Daily Sunshine reported yesterday.

Speaking from her hospital bed, Zhang Yizhi said her baby and she were doing well.

"My lovely daughter is in very good condition. We have not given her a name yet, as we haven't come up with a special name that tells our girl how lucky she was when she came into this world. Both my husband and I are very thankful to all those passers-by who offered help to make sure both me and my new-born baby were safe," she said, while looking at the baby sleeping next to her.

Zhang, from Jieyang in Guangdong, was full term when she started to feel contractions at home in Bao'an on Saturday night. Her husband Chen Changxu walked her to Longsheng Road to wait for a taxi to go to hospital early Sunday morning.

However, after waiting for more than 20 minutes without seeing a taxi, the contractions became stronger and more frequent.

When the pain became too great she sat on the ground. People passing by helped by calling the 120 emergency hotline. However, Zhang's baby could not wait and she was born on the street before an ambulance arrived.

The baby's crying attracted many onlookers. A woman who runs a grocery store in a wet market across the street gave the couple two blankets. "Don't let your wife sit on the ground, it's too cold. Let her sit on a blanket. She is very weak now because she lost a lot of blood during the delivery and cannot stand the cold," said the grocery owner Xu Jinlan. Xu covered the baby with another blanket.

When Zhang was in labor, two security guards at a nearby residential community ran to clinics trying to find a doctor, while another one kept calling 120 for an ambulance.

Zhang and her baby were taken to Longhua People's Hospital. Doctors at the hospital said both the mother and the baby were safe. "They would likely have been overcome by the cold if they had not been given blankets and had not been taken to hospital in time," said an unnamed doctor.

(Wei Jie)