US radio presenter gives birth live on air to share the experience with her listeners

A US radio presenter gave birth live on air so she could “share” the moment her son came into the world with her listeners.

Cassiday Proctor, a co-host on the The Arch station in St Louis, Missouri, even let her listeners help name her son, Jameson, by phoning in suggestions and then picking the winner.

She was working on her show, called Spencer’s Neighbourhood, on Monday when she first felt contractions, two week ahead of her due date.

As her baby was breech, Ms Proctor was scheduled for a C-section and her station was given permission to broadcast from the procedure.

A nurse held a phone up as medical staff performed the operation so it could be broadcast to listeners on the morning show.  Jameson arrived at 7:45 am - right in the middle of drive time.

In the broadcast Ms Proctor can be heard commenting she hopes her son will become a “future genius” before a midwife tells her: “Right, he's out”.

The new mother can then be heard saying “he's so cute” before the 7lb 6oz infant starts wailing.

Speaking after the birth to the KSDK news channel, Ms Proctor said: “It was really cool to be able to share that with our listeners because they have been there for the whole journey with me, [from] announcing I was pregnant.

“We are on cloud nine right now. I think we couldn't be happier.

“I was only nervous about bringing a child into the world. The part about putting it on the radio - I do that every day. So it was nervousness about him being okay.”

Prior to going into labour Ms Procter had asked her listeners to suggest names for her baby and received more than 400 submissions.

The station narrowed the potential names to a shortlist of 24, with 12 coming from listeners and 12 from the expectant parents, before holding an on-air bracket competition where listeners helped eliminate various options until they were left with one.

Ms Proctor said she was happy with the final choice and glad she avoided some of the wackier offerings.

“Fredbird was not a name that I wanted, neither was StanTheMan” she said.