A dad delivered his baby after a midwife left the hospital room in a panic.

Baby Cleo Gray was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck on February 21, at the John Radcliffe Hospital Women's Centre. She was delivered by her dad Matt, a former ambulance technician, after a "panicked" midwife left the room.

Matt managed to unwrap the cord from Cleo's neck after the high-risk delivery, the Sun reported.

Ensure our latest news headlines always appear at the top of your Google Search by making us a Preferred Source. Click here to activate or add us as Preferred Source in your Google search settings.

Staff returned to the room to find Matt's wife Jo cradling the baby. Jo was seething and told the Banbury Guardian: "It is terrifying. It could have gone so wrong."

Cleo is the couple's fourth child and the labour was expected to progress quickly. The birth was deemed high-risk, as Jo has several medical conditions.

Jo went to the John Radcliffe Hospital Women's Centre after going into labour two weeks early. The Oxford University Hospitals Trust (OUH), which runs the hospital, apologised to the family.

Jo said she initially had a lovely midwife. But a replacement came to attend to the birth as the first midwife was needed elsewhere.

"It went downhill from there; it was really bad," Jo said. She said the new midwife seemed less experienced and was not communicative or reassuring.

"Within minutes I went into full blown delivery," Jo said.

Jo said that the midwife kept moving her and that the baby's heart rate kept changing but it was after every contraction, which is considered normal.

"But she started panicking, which in turn, made me panic," Jo added.

She said the midwife told her that the baby's heart rate was dropping and it was getting dangerous.

Jo said she was going into a panic attack because she had a traumatic birth before in which she nearly lost her son.

"But before we knew it, she'd left the room. We were left on our own," she said.

Matt ran out to fetch the midwife, who returned, but who left again shortly after.

They claim she was gone for 10 to 15 minutes.

"After she ran out a second time, I realised we were going to have to deliver the baby ourselves. I put some gloves on and minutes later, baby's was born," Matt said.

"Once she was out, I saw the cord was actually around her neck. I managed to unwrap it but wasn't able to get rid of the mucus."

"I cleaned her and dried her and gave her to Jo. They came in about two minutes afterwards and told me it was good that I'd put on gloves!" Matt said.

The couple say they could not reach the call button behind Jo's bed to get help.

Jo said the staff did not apologise at the time, telling the couple the incident "was very unfortunate but everything was OK."

The couple have since filed a formal complaint with OUH and the Care Quality Commission.

An OUH spokesman said they are taking issues they raise very seriously and will be carrying out a full investigation into what transpired.

"We are unable to provide further detail while that investigation is underway but are committed to openness and transparency when sharing our full findings with Jordan and Matthew once the process has been completed," the spokesperson said.

The OUH maternity unit is one of the 12 being investigated in the National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation.

An interim report found deep-rooted issues in NHS maternity care.