You’re on a plane and someone goes into labour. The first thing to do? Take your own pulse

Each week, Good Weekend’s how-to column shares expert advice on how to navigate some of modern life’s big – and small – challenges. This week: How to deliver a baby on a plane.*

You’ll need some privacy. Move the patient into the galley and pull the curtain. Introduce yourself and glove up: there should be a pair in the medical kit. Then take your pulse. That’s right – your pulse. “This helps centre yourself,” says obstetrician Dr Jennifer Cook, who successfully delivered a breech baby during a flight from Sydney to Chile in 2007.

Sit the patient up in a semi-prone position. Cook used the collapsible chair that the flight attendants sit in. “There won’t be stirrups, so get the crew to support the woman’s legs.”

Now, kneel down and have a look. If the first thing you see is the baby’s bum emerging, it’s a breech birth, which is dangerous and requires a caesarean section – not something we’d recommend for the uninitiated, even if you do happen to be handy with plastic cutlery. But if you see the head, then it’s a conventional birth, and there are a few things to remember.

First, as the head emerges, the pressure on the perineum – the inch of skin between the anus and the vagina – will be intense. Try buttressing it with your hand. If it begins splitting anyway, get some scissors and cut the perineum diagonally – i.e. away from the anus. Don’t worry about hurting Mum, Cook says: the contractions will be so painful she won’t even feel the snip.

The baby’s head should be out now, with the rest of the body inside. When the next contraction hits, put one hand on either side of the baby’s head and firmly but gently apply downward pressure. One shoulder should come out, followed by the other. When the baby is fully out, place it on the mother’s chest.

At this point, you’re probably thinking, “Holy crap! I just delivered a baby!” Not quite. You still need to deal with the placenta, “otherwise the mother will bleed”, says Cook, “and I mean torrentially.”

Take hold of the umbilical cord and gently pull; at the same time, push down on the mother’s lower abdomen. Once the placenta is out, tie off the cord. No thread? Use a shoelace. Tie the first knot 20 centimetres from the baby. Tie another knot an inch up from that, then cut between the two knots. Tying off is vital: without it, the baby will lose a lot of blood, which will end up all over the galley. (Not pretty.)