Calabasas : Woman Delivers Daughter’s Child

Instinct took over early Tuesday when a Newbury Park woman had to deliver her grandchild in the back of a minivan racing down the Ventura Freeway in Calabasas.

Helen Sisneros, 46, delivered her daughter’s child while Yvonne Conway’s husband, Timothy, was taking them on the 30-minute trip to the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Woodland Hills.

Paige Marie Conway was delivered safely one week early, weighing in at 6 pounds, 14 ounces.

Sisneros said it all began when she came home from her job in medical records at Los Robles Regional Medical Center at 9:45 p.m. Monday to find Yvonne Conway, 25, pacing back and forth.

“I told her you have two choices, you can either take a shower and relax, or we can go to the hospital,” Sisneros said.

Conway chose to wait, but she was awakened by contractions at 12:30 a.m.

Sisneros said she and the Conways hopped in the minivan to drive to the hospital. But about 10 minutes into the trip--as they drove through Calabasas--Conway began screaming, “Mom, help me” from the front passenger seat of the car.

Sisneros said she grabbed her daughter and pulled her into the back seat.

Although she works in a hospital, she has never been present at any birth besides those of her own children.

But when she saw the baby’s head, she knew what to do.

Sisneros said her daughter gave a few pushes and the baby came out, but the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck. “I just dug my hands in and kept the cord away from the baby’s neck,” she said.

Sisneros rode like that all the way to the hospital, where the mother and child rested Tuesday. They returned home from the hospital about 6 p.m.