Although expectant mother Margarita was having contractions "first every four minutes, then every three", doctors in Hospital Virxe da Xunqueira in the town of Cee, La Coruña, decided labour was not imminent.

They sent her home but as it was already 9pm on Sunday night and the family lived some distance away in the town of Merexo, the woman decided to book into the nearby Hotel Insua with her partner.

"I realized we weren't going to make if very far," she told regional daily La Voz de Galicia.

Baby Marina was born just two hours later.

The hotel is just a few hundred metres from the hospital but the couple were told that an ambulance would take 25 minutes.

New dad Manuel said that he was keeping a sense of humour about the circumstances leading up to the birth but admitted that he was on edge thanks to "two days with no sleep".

Margarita, who is 35 and has two other children, was described as "tired" but otherwise fine after giving birth to the healthy, 2.78kg baby.

Hotel staff are said to have remained unaware of the events transpiring in room 216 until doctors and an ambulance crew arrived to take the newborn to hospital with her mother.

The hotel's owner, Pilar Insua, sent flowers to the family in hospital and invited them to stay in the hotel for free to celebrate Marina's first birthday.

"Because it's not everyday something like this happens," she said.