A police officer who helped a woman in labour get to hospital during rush-hour traffic yesterday may be honoured by having the child named after him.

Papatoetoe woman Liang Xiaoxian gave birth in Middlemore Hospital at 9.30am, about an hour and a half after she sought police help.

Xiaoxian's sister-in-law Sarah Su was in the car with her and the baby's father Dibin Su when they spotted a patrol car on the southern motorway about 8am.

"My sister-in-law was in a lot of pain and she couldn't wait any longer,'' Su said. "The motorway was blocked so we saw a police car on duty and parked next to it on the side and asked the police for help."

Sergeant Polyvius Stylianou was there dealing with a minor bumper-to-bumper accident.

"I felt mild panic really, I had driven my own wife to hospital in similar circumstances so once we discovered her contractions weren't far apart we tried to get her to the hospital as soon as possible," he said.

"We transferred her to my vehicle - it's the best thing we could do under the circumstances - along with two of her family members to keep her calm and happy."

Other police staff were tasked with looking after the crash scene while Stylianou took the stay-at-home mum to hospital in a trip that "necessitated the use of red and blue lights and a siren as the contractions were shortening".

It took about eight minutes to get Xiaoxian to the birthing ward.

Su said she was not prepared to help her sister-in-law deliver the baby on the motorway and didn't know what she would have done without Stylianou's help.

Her brother, the baby's father, was also "nervous" about their options.

"We were so relieved because when we arrived [at the hospital] it was really quick, like two minutes, before we were in the delivery room and the midwife started helping my sister-in-law," Su said.

The baby, weighing 3.75kg, was born less than an hour later and Xiaoxian and the boy were home by yesterday afternoon.

The couple - who are also parents to four-year-old Qichen - have yet to name their newborn, but they haven't ruled out naming him after the officer who helped them.  

- © Fairfax NZ News

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