A woman who gave birth on the side of the road only 20 minutes south of Lumsden this morning says she would have been able to birth at the former maternity centre if it had been fully open.

Amanda McIvor woke up to her first contraction at 4.30 this morning. Some two hours later, she gave birth on the side of the road with the assistance of her midwife, Sarah Stokes, in an ambulance making its way to Southland Hospital.

Miss McIvor, who lives near the Mavora Lakes region, said she had planned to give birth at Southland Hospital for her second birth, but didn't expect her baby boy to arrive so quickly.

Miss McIvor met with Mrs Stokes at Lumsden at 5.20am, who assessed she was well on her way. 

She said she would have given birth at Lumsden if full services were running like they two months ago, and then transfer to Southland Hospital in Invercargill.

"And then he would have been born in a bed, comfortably and warm."

While the ambulance she gave birth in was warm, she said it wasn't comfortable and she "wouldn't recommend it."

In addition, a medical helicopter would not have been able to fly either because of this morning's electrical storm, she said.

"If [the birth] had been bad, it would have been real bad."

Miss McIvor said if she didn't have Mrs Stokes as her midwife, the experience would have been a lot scarier.

"She kept me calm, she knew what was happening and she was prepared. Whereas if I had been a mum that was on my way to somewhere, and something had gone wrong, I would have been petrified. Absolutely freaking out."

Last month the Southern DHB downgraded Lumsden's maternity centre into a so-called Maternity and Child Hub, which eliminated birthing services and post-natal stays. The move has been deeply controversial within the Fiordland and Northern Southland communities that are affected by it.

"It's something that needs to be looked at because it is such a long way from Te Anau and Lumsden to Invercargill, that if something went wrong, it's going to go wrong in a bad way.

"What kind of country do we live in that a mother needs to give birth to a child on the side of the road?"

Clutha-Southland MP Hamish Walker said in a video posted to his public Facebook account said it was a "huge relief" that both baby and mother were doing well, "but this wouldn’t have happened if the Government hadn’t cut maternity services in the town."

"It’s clear today the Government’s decision to cut services at Lumsden has put Clutha-Southland mothers and babies at risk. This is unacceptable, especially as it is completely avoidable if the centre could simple retain its full services."

Click here to watch the video in full.