She was a regular visitor at the Prospect Street nail salon but this new mom will now remember the salon for a surprising new reason – as being the birthplace of her baby boy!
Nancy Wang, the owner of Eden Nails, recalls how Wednesday afternoon her Glen Rock Salon turned into a maternity ward for a mom who had come for a manicure, pedicure and a foot massage but went home holding her newborn!
“The mother has been coming here since we first opened five years ago,” Wang explained.
On Wednesday she came for a relaxing few hours at the salon though she was already in labor. The second time mom has a daughter and it had been 44 hours of intense labor pains before she had been born, so this time around she assumed the baby would take his own time.
Little though did she know that the boy was not as patient as his older sister.
“Right after her massage, she went into the bathroom, and that’s when her water broke,” Wang said.
Nancy had just arrived at the salon. The woman initially said that she was fine and asked the employees to call for an ambulance. She still thought she would make it in time to the hospital. But it was not to be.
Luckily, there was help close by.
“Another one of my customers was a nurse” from a nearby medical facility, Wang said, and “she laid the woman down in the bathroom, and everyone was very nervous.”
The salon employees meanwhile called an ambulance and the women’s husband. He was just in time to see his son arrive into the world.
The baby was born “right here, in the salon,” Nancy recalled. “The ambulance came just as she had her little boy; there was blood everywhere.”
She, for her part says she was calm during the whole ordeal.
“I’ve been in business for over 20 years,” Nancy said. “You think this is the first time a woman’s water broke in one of my salons?”
It is widely believed that foot massages, or reflexology, can speed up delivery by ‘rousing certain pressure points around the foot and ankle that, in turn, stimulate the uterus, which then begins contracting.’ There is not a lot of scientific evidence to support it, but many women have said a trip to the spa helped bring on labour.
