I am well accustomed to rare pregnancy illnesses what with my Obstetric Choleasthasis and Low Platelets. I was lucky and both were treated and managed carefully once diagnosed. However, sometimes things get missed. Today we have a guest post from reader Kate at Albert and Me who is kindly sharing her experience of Eclampsia with you. As always please do leave any comments or questions below.
Eclampsia isn’t something I’d ever heard about until it happened to me. I’d been told all about pre-eclampsia and knew that it was a very bad thing. I also knew its symptoms – very swollen ankles, high blood pressure and protein in your pee. What I didn’t stop to consider is that the pre- in pre-eclampsia meant this very bad thing came ahead of something much, much worse. The first thing I knew about eclampsia was a rainbow of flashing lights and lost vision seconds after the delivery of my baby boy, emergency buzzers sounding, the outline of several people frantically working at my bedside and then blackness.
I’d had a pretty standard pregnancy or so I thought. My baby was growing well and my bump was measuring the right size for my dates. During the last couple of months of being with bump my ankles swelled up a lot but I was told it was nothing to worry about as my blood pressure was fine and I had only a slight hint of protein in my wee. But my ankles kept swelling and my feet did too. They got to the point where they were so sore and hot to the touch they didn’t resemble my feet anymore and wouldn’t have looked out of place on an elephant. In their hot, massive state I would sit with them elevated on a cushion and imagine the skin bursting open like a cooked sausage. They were that swollen.
As my midwife wasn’t overly concerned I sought some advice from my mother-in-law. She tried to reassure me that her ankles swelled when she was pregnant too and I shouldn’t worry. But something was niggling at me so I went to see the doctor. He dismissed my fears and told me to just put my feet up and drink lots of water.
I thought I must be worrying over nothing so I left it. Flash forward to 38 weeks into my pregnancy and my labour started. After heading to hospital and finding out I wasn’t dilated at all, I had a hot aromatherapy bath to help ease the pain. Before they sent me home I was checked again. I had dilated 4cm, not the usual one, in an hour. Things were happening so in the hospital we stayed. I was later told by a midwife that the fact I had gone into labour early and was dilating so quickly was my body’s way of trying to make me better – the only way to cure pre-eclampsia is the deliver the baby and placenta.
Albert’s birth wasn’t a straight forward one. I’ll spare you the gory details but he was back-to-back with his head at a funny angle so we went down the perthidin and forceps route with a cut and a tear without an epidural as there was no time (despite being in active labour for more than an hour). The feeling as he was born is one I will never forget as it was truly amazing, but I couldn’t enjoy it as seconds after it all went sideways. As soon as he was delivered everything went blurry and all I could see were rainbow flashing lights. My blood pressure had sky-rocketed and caused the disturbance in my vision – pre-eclampsia had caught me out. I knew something was badly wrong and started shouting “I can’t see my baby! I can’t see my baby!” Buzzers sounded, another 10 people piled into the room and then I lost two hours of my life. It’s this bit that makes me the most sad as I had been robbed of that precious golden hour and skin on skin time with my baby and my husband and I will never, ever get that back.
What happened was an eclamptic fit and blacking out. Fortunately for me I was in the best possible place and the hospital staff on the labour ward brought me back with no long term adverse effects. Eclampsia can bring on multiple organ failure and death but thankfully that wasn’t my fate. I can’t think about what would have happened if Albert hadn’t been born when the fit struck as the odds on his survival would have been pretty low. My husband has only just recently told me his view of what happened as he finds it very upsetting. He was ushered into the corner of the room, our bright red, newborn baby wriggling in his arms, while a screen was put up around me and consultants and nurses dropped everything to rush into the room. One consultant stood on a stool with a megaphone and orchestrated proceedings, shouting instructions to the amazing people who were frantically working to literally save my life.
I came round attached to so many drips and machines that my stitch up job had to happen there in the delivery room and not in theatre as it was too difficult to move me. I was eventually moved to another room on the labour ward and was kept under constant supervision for the next 48 hours with my blood pressure checked every 15 minutes day and night with a vast array of tablets and injections to take. Again, it was only afterwards that I found out this is because eclamptic seizures can reoccur postpartum.
In the weeks after the birth I’ve got to say I was a wreck. If I tried to talk about what happened I just cried and all I wanted was to hole up at home with Albert and my husband, just the three of us. As it was, the visitors came and of course you can’t send them away as they are people who care about you. But thinking about it now I don’t know how I coped. I’d gone through such a trauma, been brought back from the brink, stitched up and we had been given a screaming red mini human to look after. That alone was enough but I had to get dressed and play host too while our precious bundle was passed around. It sounds selfish but I just wanted him to myself, I think because I had missed out on that bonding time straight after his birth. I also now think I must have been in some state of shock and with the raging hormones it took a while to settle down.
So what is the point of me writing this? Well I guess it’s two-pronged really. Firstly if your feet and ankles are swelling and you think something isn’t quite right, get yourself checked out and if you still think things are off don’t settle for being fobbed off like I was. To think that all of this could be avoided. It turns out my normal blood pressure level is fairly low so the fact it was actually quite raised was missed as it was still within a normal range.
Secondly, if you know someone who this has happened to, please be kind. Give her space and don’t expect her to talk about it for a good while, if ever. Maybe don’t expect to see the baby in the first few days or weeks but let her know you’re there if she needs you. There’s every likelihood she does, it’s just that she will want to hold her baby close while you make the cups of tea and talk about anything other than childbirth.
Image by Albert and Me.
Wow Kate, what a terrible experience. I can’t even imagine.
On one hand I’m furious on your behalf that it wasn’t picked up by earlier clinicians, but then the team at the hospital sound incredible. It must have been such a trauma for your husband to see, but thank God they were on it!
Some great advice for others too. I was only chatting last night to one of my best girls about her swollen ankles in last week’s heat xx
Thanks Karen. Looking back now it’s hard to understand how it was missed and how I was robbed off so many times but I’ve got to say that everyone in the hospital who was there at the birth was amazing. I hope your friend is ok and not suffering too much in the heat and it’s always worth getting badly swollen ankles checked out when you’re pregnant I think. xx
Absolutely you’d want to be just you 3 for an bit! Were you offered counselling for post traumatic stress? I know someone who went through HELLP which was missed by the midwife and I think she struggled with her feelings after as subsequent children may not be on the cards for them
Hi Claire, no I was never offered counselling for it. I think I might pay to get my hospital notes though to find out exactly what happened in that missing time. I think that might help me fully understand it.
I know someone through a group who suffered from HELLP in her first pregnancy but went on to have more children with no complications. I hope your friend can come to terms with what happened to her, it must have been awful x
This brought back how I felt after birth, my son was also back to back and after two hours pushing I also had forcep delivery as he wasn’t moving, afterwards my placenta didn’t come away whole and I lost 3 litres of blood. I saw my baby for 1 minute before my husband was ushered out of the room and it was another 4 or 5 hours before I saw him again. The Drs were amazing but it did affect my bond with baby in the first couple of weeks I think – I was exhausted after 38 hours of labour and a blood transfusion. I don’t know if you got one but I think a ‘debrief’ session from the hospital would have really helped to make sense of what had happened. Luckily for me afterwards we were put in our own room with a midwife looking after us all night, and she was a client of my husbands auntie and looked after us like you wouldn’t believe. The hospital were amazing though so I’m sure we would have had the same level of care no matter what, but I’m glad I chose the hospital I did!
Oh Claire that sounds so traumatic and awful. It must have been so tough for all of you. The thing I was most upset about was missing out on the skin on skin bonding time as soon as Albert was born and it was hard for the first few weeks as I think we were all shell shocked. It did pass though and everything is great now by just not how I imagined the whole birth thing to go!
So brave to tell your story! I sobbed most of the way through, maybe because it’s just 6weeks after I gave birth and i’m still hormonal, or maybe because it so very easily could have been my story.
I too had hugely swollen feet and raised blood pressure so when they found protein in my wee at 39+4 I was sent to the hospital to be checked. They played it down – maybe to keep me calm – but I was kept in and induced that day. Seems that when you’re pre-eclamptic they just need to get baby and placenta out ASAP.
They monitored mine and babies heart rates, my contractions, my blood pressure and got me measuring my fluid input and output (I never want to pee in a jug again) for the entire 53 hours from being induced to giving birth, and then the blood pressure and fluids for a good few days afterwards.
Luckily for me the part immediately after giving birth went smoother for me than it did for you, but it was only afterwards and reflecting back on how concerned and on edge the staff seemed and how many Drs were in the room for delivery, that I realise what a big deal this is and that the risk of fitting/organ failure, and even death, is real.
Thank you for sharing your story and inspiring me to summarise mine in this comment. Like you say, it is so important to get checked, and get second, third and even fourth opinions if you need to. It’s not being a hypochondriac, we know our bodies!
Oh Katy I’m sorry if it brought back some difficult memories and emotions for you. But congratulations on your teeny new baby! I’m glad that your pre-eclampsia was caught and while it sounds scary it looks like you were in the best place. And yes I agree, we know our bodies best!
Your story is so familiar to me (although thankfully I stopped at pre-eclampsia) and I found it very therapeutic to read – thank you for sharing.
My twin girls were delivered in a huge rush at 32 weeks due to severe pre-eclampsia and I still, 3 years later, find the memories of that night really traumatic. Like you, I was told to stop worrying about pre-eclapsia, despite horrific swelling for a week or so before their arrival (hours before their delivery, the swelling was so bad that even my bum cheeks were swollen!) and traces of protein starting to appear in my urine. I will always be so grateful that I followed my instinct and went to triage that night, and that the midwife who spoke to me on the phone was so quick to pick up that something wasn’t right. Only a few hours later, my kidneys were starting to fail and the girls’ heartrates were showing signs of distress. Always, always trust your instincts.
Katie that sounds so scary and it’s terrible that you were fobbed off when you were so badly swollen. It’s a good job the midwife you spoke too was so switched on and that you trusted your instincts. I hope you are OK now and that you and your girls haven’t suffered any after effects.
Scary stuff, thank you for sharing – and I hope you’re on your way to finding some peace with what happened.
I was diagnosed with preeclampsia at 36 weeks and kept under consultant monitoring until they decided that my symptoms were galloping along and I was induced at 38 weeks. My induction took 12 hours from start to finish – a good indication, like yours, that my body wanted it OUT. It was an extremely medicalised birth and they were quite concerned as I was taking on board a lot of fluids and they were just making me swell and swell… But luckily I delivered and everything was ok; presumably partly because I’d been on BP tablets in the run up to the birth and it was keeping some of it under control. I hadn’t realised how unwell it was making me feel until the baby was out and suddenly I felt fantastic (comparatively).
On the flip side, in my second (recent) pregnancy, I was prescribed mini aspirin at 16 weeks which I took to 34 weeks, had a completely straightforward pregnancy (with a few extra BP and protein checks!) and was able to have a completely intervention free water birth in the MLU. So although it puts you at higher risk, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will happen again if you do decide to go for another.
Worth mentioning that there are also other symptoms of preeclampsia – high BP, protein in the urine and swelling are the most common, but also a severe pain in the stomach (across the top of the bump), and migraine like headaches with ‘blank’ spots in the vision can present too.
Thanks Ruth and I’m glad your delivery went OK even though it wasn’t how you imagined it to be. And it’s so good to hear yourmost recent pregnancy was much happier too. I don’t think we are going to try for another baby but it’s great to hear the experience can be so different.
Thanks so much for being so brave and sharing this. I hope you don’t mind me sharing my story.
At 24 weeks I started to develop a rash on my bump. It was incredibly itchy. My GP prescribed me a steroid cream and sent me for a blood test to rule out HELLP, which it did. Within a few days the rash had spread to cover my whole body. I rang the Emergency Obstetric Unit and they advised me to come in. Again all of my tests came back clear, apart from slightly raised BP. They thought it might be the start of Obstetric Choleasthasis so prescribed me antihistamines for the itch (these made my face swell up). They also said I’d have to be monitored more frequently. My husband wasn’t satisfied with this and asked me to change my 25 Week appointment coming up in a few days from my midwife to my consultant for a second opinion. Apart from the rash and itch I felt fine.
At my 25 Week appointment we discovered that my BP was raised slightly, I had a trace of protein in my urine and my ankles had swollen a lot the start of preeclampsia. The Doctor scanned the baby, he was measuring small, had low fluid around him and the flow between baby and placenta through the umbilical cord was starting to stop and reverse in one place. I was told I was being admitted and probably would have to deliver and wouldn’t get home until after I delivered. I was given steroids to help the baby’s lungs and rushed by ambulance to a specialist hospital. They kept me going on for 5 days with 2 scans a day to make sure that the baby was ok, I wasn’t allowed to eat until after my scans incase they had to operate. I was put on a 24 hour magnesium drip to help the baby against bleeds on his brain. I had to measure all of my fluid input and output the whole time. My insides were just a ball of nerves. Eventually one of the many consultants I saw decided that we had to get the baby out. So at 25+6 days I had a Classic C Section (cut vertically inside and horizontally outside) I delivered my 1lb 6oz baby boy. He is still in the Special Care Baby Unit and it is his due date tomorrow. The staff in both hospitals from the word go have been amazing with both me and my son, we could never thank them enough. He is doing well and is now 4lbs 11oz and feeding by bottle. He is still on low flow oxygen, but is getting there. He is a wee fighter.
Oh Ruth you and your husband and son have been through it and are so brave. I can’t imagine how terrifying that must have been for you. When do you think you will be able to take him home? I hope it’s soon and it sounds like he’s doing really well xx
Thank you so much for sharing. I do hope with time the memories of the traumatic experience fade s little and become easier to deal with. I can’t imagine how your husband felt at the time either. Absolutely you deserved some time just the three of you. I have found it irritating with how some people do not understand how precious those first few weeks are for a new family and now you just want to hold your little one close.
I had high blood pressure and like you I had low blood pressure so despite it being in normal range it wasn’t right and I thought they’d induce me but one doctor came in and decided I was ok. I didn’t feel right for the last three weeks and was already galloping towards being two weeks over. I went in to have my waters broken but was left in the pre labour room for two days told my bp was in normal range and wasn’t high priority for at least three more days. After kicking up a fuss they induced me 15 days over. My body wanted ‘out’ and I like you went from my 3cm I already had been for a week to 7cm in an hot to fully dilated in two. I was ill during labour with infection and high bp and ill after birth- nothing compared to what you went through but I felt like I was about to faint and was sick and couldn’t focus on anything. I missed my skin to skin for an hour and a half and I was upset.
I’m so pleased that you’ve shared your experience because like you- next time- I will be trusting my instincts!
Thank you so much for sharing Kate. What an awful experience for you and your husband.
I had quite a traumatic birth a few months ago (though definitely not as scary as yours!) and my hospital offered me a Birth Reflection session which was really helpful. My husband and I sat down with a midwife and went through my labour notes. It was quite emotional and tough to hear parts of it (especially when they talk about your baby being in danger) but afterwards I did feel a sense of closure and can actually now contemplate having another child one day. I understand it is something that quite a few hospitals offer so it might be worth checking out.
Thanks again for sharing. x
Wow this post! It might just be me but you never actually think about the fact that it is “pre” to anything! Although reading your story has petrified me to my core…I’m so glad I’ve read it. Your a brave so and so! Just goes to show that you always know your own body deep down.