A YOUNG couple have recalled the dramatic moment their first child entered the world in the back of a car just 200yards from hospital.Mother Anita Staniecka-Atkins, from Diss, felt contractions start in the last minutes of her 23rd birthday on August 11, but was told over the telephone by a midwife to take a bath and relax.

A YOUNG couple have recalled the dramatic moment their first child entered the world in the back of a car just 200yards from hospital.

Mother Anita Staniecka-Atkins, from Diss, felt contractions start in the last minutes of her 23rd birthday on August 11, but was told over the telephone by a midwife to take a bath and relax.

Just a few hours later, it became clear that 6lb 14oz Alan Atkins was not willing to wait until the morning.

'I phoned up about an ambulance and they said it would be about an hour,' said father Daryl Atkins, 22.

'I said 'she isn't going to make that'.'

Mr Atkins then turned to his mother, who rushed from Great Moulton to ferry the pair to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.

'We'd just come off the bypass and went around the roundabout when she said she couldn't hold on any more,' said Mr Atkins.

'We got as far as the helipad, which is right next to the Accident and Emergency Department.'

'We were barely 200 yards from the entrance.'

Although the pair had not made it inside the hospital, there was no time to wait and Mrs Staniecka-Atkins gave birth on the back seat of her mother-in-law's Seat Ibiza.

'He just came out and sort of lay on the seat,' she said.

Alan's umbilical cord was wrapped dangerously around his neck at first, but thanks to his quick-thinking grandmother, Gina Atkins, it was removed, and he was soon fighting fit.

'When I heard him crying I felt better. He's lovely now, sleeping all the time. He's a happy little man.'

Following the birth it was up to Mr Atkins to finish the journey to the hospital on foot and summon help.

'I ran hell-for-leather. It was almost like I was in the 100m in the Olympics,' he said.