Midwife learns colleague of six years delivered her

Two midwives worked together for six years before realising one delivered the other into the world.

Their connection came to light when Katie Wintle, 29, was shown a picture of herself as a baby and recognised the woman holding her as now-retired colleague Sharon Cooling.

While she was pregnant with her son Luca, she and her family were looking at photos of the day she was born at Singleton Hospital in 1995 and spotted the familiar face.

"Straight away I knew it was Sharon," she said.

Her mum, Sally, had sent Ms Cooling a copy of the image after her daughter was born.

"As soon as I saw the photograph, I instantly recognised it and pulled out my copy," Ms Cooling said.

"I have a box of things that women have given to me over years."

She continued: "I remember the day Katie was born, the room we were in and her parents, really clearly.

"I was very surprised to learn this after working together for so long. It's not every day that you come across someone who pursued the same career as you, and that you were there when they were born."

Ms Cooling recently left Swansea Bay health board after 48 years. She started in the NHS aged 17 in 1975 and worked with Ms Wintle on the labour ward from 2016.

"I had worked with Sharon for so long, learning so much from her all the while, we didn't know our special past," said Ms Wintle, a midwife sonographer.

"If you wanted to know something or needed help on the ward, she was the person to go to.

"Now we've found this out, it means so much to both of us."