‘What’s the matter?’ screamed Mrs Wilson. ‘Why isn’t it crying?’

Danuta massaged the tiny chest, her heart thudding with dread as it remained lifeless. She held the baby up by the feet and slapped its bottom, but still there was no response.

With Mr Wilson yelling from the hall, the baby boy howling in the cot, and Mrs Wilson in hysterics it was hard to concentrate. But Danuta shut out everything as she determinedly tried to bring life to the little one she’d just delivered.

However, long moments passed, and the massage clearly wasn’t working. There had been no response to the second slap – and even several puffs of oxygen into that tiny mouth had done no good. And then her gaze fell on the bowl of cold water and she realised there was one other thing she could try. It was unorthodox, but she’d seen it work before, and this tiny scrap deserved her very best efforts.

She picked up the baby and knelt on the floor to immerse her frail body in the cold water. There was no reaction, so she lifted her out, rubbed her roughly dry, and tried again. ‘Come on, little one. Come on, breathe,’ she whispered urgently.

‘What you doing?’ screamed Mrs Wilson who was now leaning over the side of the bed and watching in horror. ‘Are you trying to drown my baby?’

‘No. I am trying to get her to breathe,’ said Danuta, once more plunging the tiny girl into the icy water and praying she was doing the right thing.

This time, baby’s chest heaved at the shock and her frail arms and legs stiffened as she took her first breath and weakly began to cry. On the brink of tears, Danuta swiftly wrapped her in a clean towel, and got to her feet.

‘I make shock to help her breathe,’ she said, her legs trembling with relief as she laid the baby in Mrs Wilson’s arms. ‘You have your daughter, Mrs Wilson, but now your husband must telephone for ambulance.’

Mrs Wilson burst into noisy tears as she cradled her tiny baby. ‘She’s so small. Will she pull through all right?’ she asked fearfully.

‘We must get her to hospital,’ said Danuta, unwilling to promise anything in the circumstances. She opened the door to once again find an ashen-faced Mr Wilson standing there. ‘You must telephone for ambulance immediately,’ she ordered, cutting off his questions.

He shot off down the stairs and Danuta turned back to Mrs Wilson. ‘She is very small, which is why no one realised she was there behind her big brother,’ she explained calmly to the distraught mother. ‘But she is now breathing, and that is good. The hospital will look after you all.’

Leaving the newborn in her mother’s arms, Danuta quickly cleaned up the baby boy with the tepid water in the bowl on the bedside table, and dressed him in the hand-knitted layette that had been stacked in the cot. Then she delivered Mrs Wilson’s afterbirth, gave her a good wash, changed her into a clean nightdress and brushed her hair. She’d just finished cleaning the tiny girl when she heard the urgent clanging of the ambulance bell.