Baby anguish for motorway mum who gave birth on the hard shoulder of the M1

The baby girl raced into the world eight days early when her 20-year-old mother gave birth in the back of her parents’ car on Friday.

The entire labour and birth lasted less than five minutes.

But at just six days old, the 6lb 4oz bundle of joy has been taken away by social services ‘in the child’s best interests’ – despite pleas to let her grandparents look after her.

Speaking as the baby was taken away, the grandmother said: “It is soul destroying for our family. My daughter is in bits, she’s totally distraught.

“We have been doing everything we can to keep the baby with us because it will break my daughter’s heart to have her taken away.”

The single mum, whose first child lives with its father, was taken by ambulance to Milton Keynes Hospital after she gave birth.

She remained there with the baby until Wednesday, when social workers arrived to take the tot away.

A judge has imposed an interim care order and the baby will be taken into foster care.

The mother said: “Social services think I’m an unfit mum. They say they’re worried I have not got a support network around me.

“I can’t lose her.”

The painful goodbye followed a dramatic birth at the side of the motorway close to the Dunstable turn off.

The family, who live in Milton Keynes, were on their way back from visiting a sick relative in London when the expectant mother suddenly felt “niggles.”

They pulled onto the hard shoulder and just moments later the perfectly healthy baby was born into her grandmother’s arms.

The grandmother said: “Social services think my daughter is incapable of looking after her because she was brought up in care herself.

“They used that, and the fact she is a single mum, against her.”

An interim care order is granted by a court only when it is deemed necessary and in the child’s best interests.