Mum who gave birth in a forest delivers sixth baby without a midwife or pain relief next to playground in her garden – and 1.4 million people watched, including her kids

A MUM-OF-SIX told how more than 1.4 million people watched her give birth – after she delivered her youngest son by a slide in her back garden and then uploaded the footage to YouTube.

Sarah Schmid, 36, had all six of her children - Johanna , 11, Jonathon, 10, Emanuel, eight, Elisabeth, six, Konstantin, three, and, Kiran, one - outside of hospital.

She was inspired to adopt “free birthing” – when you give birth outside without any medical assistance – after training to be a doctor and seeing people deliver babies in the wards.

This experience put her off giving birth in a medical setting, she said.

“I studied medicine to become a doctor, although now I am a full-time mum,” Sarah, married to Tim, 41, explained.

“There I watched people giving birth in hospital and I thought, ‘I can’t do this. It isn’t relaxing.’

“It made me realise I wanted to give birth without intervention.”

After having Johanna at home in September 2006, with the help of a midwife but no pain relief, for her second, Jonathon, she decided to forgo any medical assistance.

“I didn’t like having a midwife and the birth was long and painful – I was in labour for 15 hours,” she said.

“So I did a lot of reading about birth myself. I tried to learn everything about birth I thought I should know.”

By the time she was pregnant with Jonathon she was a baby expert and felt perfectly prepared for his arrival – in a forest in Sweden, where she used to live.

She was alone in July 2008 when he arrived after four hours - and Tim arrived afterwards to take photos.

Sarah, who lives in France, but is from Halle, Germany, said: “I can relax best outside. I can look up to the sky, feel grass under my feet and focus.

“I found it stressful in hospital. I found the forest very relaxing, so I thought it was the best place for me to have my baby.

“My waters broke around 11pm and I walked to the forest at 1.30am and he was born around 3.30am.”

She said she wasn’t worried about anyone stumbling upon her as she laid out her picnic blanket and delivered her son.

“It was very isolated there,” she explained. “There had been a storm, so there were just broken trees. It was bare and beautiful.

“I didn’t mind Tim not being there. I knew he had fears about the birth – especially because it was unassisted. But I felt I had to deal with my own fears first.

“I did not want to be overwhelmed with fear. He came afterwards. I called him when the baby was born."

He took pictures of their little boy before they headed home – without visiting a hospital.

Just a few years later, and without any medical attention, Sarah delivered son Emanuel in their garden.

She explained how Tim was taking photos of her bump when she felt like she needed to push.

“I wanted to give birth to him in a Native American-style tepee we have in our garden,” she said.

“But then the birth happened so quickly – I just had to stop mid-way to the tepee, without even reaching it.

“It was only 20 minutes before he came out.”

Elisabeth arrived next in April 2012 – indoors because it was so chilly on her birthday, her mum explained.