Ellie
Ellie was diagnosed with preeclampsia at 27 weeks. By 29 weeks her blood pressure had become dangerously high and she underwent an emergency caesarean. Her son had to be resuscitated before being transferred to the neonatal unit where he spent 9 weeks. The experience left Ellie feeling quite traumatised. Clips read by an actor.
Ellie is a 29-year-old White British woman who lives with her husband and 10-month-old son. She recently returned to work as a medical secretary.
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Ellie developed swelling and a headache when she was 27 weeks pregnant, which she initially put down to a heatwave. Her mother urged her to have her blood pressure checked, so she visited a local pharmacy, where staff found it to be very high. Ellie was admitted to hospital, started on labetalol and later discharged home. The following week, she again developed a severe headache and generally felt unwell. At her next her next antenatal appointment her blood pressure was found to be 170/120 and she was immediately sent back to the hospital where she underwent an emergency caesarean at 29 weeks. Prior to that she temporarily lost her vision and later heard the doctors say that she had been minutes away from having a stroke or a seizure. Afterwards, Ellie had no pain from the caesarean section itself, but found the severe fluid retention afterwards extremely uncomfortable. She lost around 15 kilograms of fluid over the following 10 days.
Ellie's son needed resuscitation at birth before being taken to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). He was later diagnosed with a hernia. Ellie was too unwell to visit him for the first 36 hours and found it surreal when she was finally able to. It was so different from how she had imagined it would be. He was so fragile that she was unable to hold him for the first five days.
Ellie remained in hospital for a week, while her son stayed in NICU for nine weeks. She found the separation very difficult and said she always felt calmer the closer she was to him. During the final week before he came home, she stayed with him on the ward to prepare for managing his tube feeds. Although she was excited to bring him home, she also found it frightening because she no longer had the constant reassurance of the NICU staff, who she described as a "security blanket". When her son was later readmitted for a hernia repair, she felt relieved because she knew that he was being closely monitored again.
The experience had a big impact on Ellie emotionally. She felt guilty about what her baby went through, and about not being able to breastfeed as she had hoped, and was traumatised by how close she came to dying. She developed anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and found it very difficult going back to work and being away from her son again. She did see a counsellor for a bit, but the counsellor specialised in treating victims of car accidents and Ellie felt she didn’t have the insight needed to adequately support her. She says her GP has been very good though and has referred her to a specialist mental health team for women who have given birth in the last year, though she is worried that she may not be able to access it because they have a waiting list.
Looking back, Ellie wishes she had been given more information about her future health after pre-eclampsia, including the chances of it happening again and whether there is anything she can do to reduce the risk. She says this information will be important when deciding whether to have another baby which frightens her. Her advice to other women is to trust their instincts, seek a second opinion if something does not feel right, and ask for help when they need it. She also believes there should be more research into pre-eclampsia, better education about the condition, and greater access to specialist mental health support after traumatic pregnancies.
Ellie thinks that advice about weight loss after having a baby is mismatched with the situations and priorities of new mums (read by an actor).
Ellie thinks that advice about weight loss after having a baby is mismatched with the situations and priorities of new mums (read by an actor).
But nobody has ever said to me about weight loss strategies or anything like that. Yeah, I'd probably be a bit offended and go, huh, thanks. But I wouldn't snub it because I know that it's, it's correct... I'd probably [have] gone ‘I've just had a baby, for goodness sake. Do you think I've got time to prepare all this healthy food? The only thing I've got time to have is a crisp sandwich’... Because I just think I've just had a baby, for goodness sake. I've just been through a really traumatic time. I'm not going to focus on broccoli right now.
Ellie, whose baby was born at 29 weeks, described the grief she felt when she could no longer continue expressing and breastfeeding after her baby went for a hernia operation (read by an actor).
Ellie, whose baby was born at 29 weeks, described the grief she felt when she could no longer continue expressing and breastfeeding after her baby went for a hernia operation (read by an actor).
And when we were managing a few feeds a day, it was breastfeeding, and he was doing really, really good with that. But then when we went and had his surgery and came back home, the stress and the overwhelmingness of everything, my milk supply just completely stopped, which was traumatic in itself because I’d already felt like I had failed him by him being early and him being in NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit)and being away. I then... then I couldn’t supply him milk anymore, just was another... like, another thing that was just so hard for me to deal with. Because I was pumping for him eight times a day whilst he was in NICU and feeding himself sole... through... through my milk, through the... the tube feeds, and at home I just... I couldn’t; I couldn’t.