My happiest day turned to horror after I almost died after giving start on account of a uncommon situation
A mom has revealed how the happiest day of her life turned into a living nightmare when she almost died of sepsis after giving birth due to a rare condition.
Ellie Marples welcomed her son Albie Marples via C-section and was enjoying the first moments of motherhood when she started to feel unwell.
As she was breastfeeding her baby boy for the first time, Marples, 32, based in the UK, said she began to feel ‘dizzy and sick’ before she suddenly started ‘throwing up blood’ and ‘everything turned black’.
Scans revealed Marples was suffering from multi-organ failure and sepsis which was caused by an amniotic fluid embolism during labor.
This occurs when amniotic fluid enters the mother’s bloodstream and is the fifth leading cause of direct maternal death.
‘It should have been one of the happiest days of my life but it turned into a nightmare,’ she reflected.
‘I was in labor for about 22 hours. Eventually when I had [the epidural] I was 10cm [dilated] and I was pushing but he wasn’t coming.
‘They decided to take me for a C-section and afterwards everything was fine. They sent me to recovery and I started feeling really poorly – but you don’t know whether it’s because you’ve given birth or because you’ve just had a major operation.
A mom has revealed how the happiest day of her life turned into a living nightmare when she almost died of sepsis after giving birth due to a rare condition
Ellie Marples welcomed her son Albie Marples via c-section but spent three weeks in a coma after she endured multi-organ failure and sepsis after an amniotic fluid embolism during labor
‘I couldn’t quench my thirst and everything went black. I started feeling really sick and I started throwing up blood.
‘I started panicking and then after that I don’t remember anything.’
Marples told the Daily Mail that everything had been normal up until then.
‘There had been no other problems during the pregnancy – everything was fine,’ she shared.
Marples had to receive emergency surgery and doctors removed 80 percent of her colon as a result of the sepsis.
She was put on life support and put into a medically induced coma while she was recovering.
One week later, however, she was rushed in for a life-saving hysterectomy after more tests revealed that her womb and cervix were also fully septic ‘from the inside out’.
‘[After the first surgery] they started reducing sedation and started trying to bring me round but my temperature was still spiking really high,’ she shared.
As she was breastfeeding her baby boy for the first time, Marples, 32, based in the UK, said she began to feel ‘dizzy and sick’ before she suddenly started ‘throwing up blood’
The new mom, who as a result of the surgery can’t have children anymore, said she woke up feeling ‘lucky to be alive’
‘They knew there was something else somewhere – some sort of infection but they weren’t sure where.
‘They took me for a scan and found out that it was my womb which was septic so they had to do a full hysterectomy and put me back under sedation.
‘My womb was septic from the inside out but from the first initial scans they didn’t see it.’
Marples ultimately spent three weeks in the medically induced coma.
The new mom, who as a result of the surgery can’t have children anymore, said she woke up feeling ‘lucky to be alive’.
‘I felt overwhelmed, I was just happy that I was still here… I was just grateful,’ she told the Daily Mail.
‘I felt really lucky, especially when you see the numbers of the survival rates [from amniotic fluid embolism],’ she added.
‘I just felt so lucky to still be here and everyone was in the right place at the right time for me that night.
While she has now physically recovered from the illness, Marples said she is still mentally coming to terms with what happened over a year on from the ordeal
‘Even staff have said to me that everyone was where they needed to be at that time.
‘If any one person had been five minutes somewhere else then it would have been a completely different story for me. I was really lucky that I had the people around me at the time.’
While she has now physically recovered from the illness, Marples said she is still mentally coming to terms with what happened over a year on from the ordeal.
‘It’s a lot to deal with. Obviously once [you’ve dealt with] the physical side of things, you just start thinking about things a lot more,’ she said.
The 32-year-old admitted that the ordeal left her ‘nervous’ that she wouldn’t bond with her newborn son Albie, who she was unable to hold for over a month due to being in hospital.
‘I was nervous because I didn’t want to not bond with him but fortunately I was lucky and I picked up as if I’d been there from day one,’ she concluded. ‘It was a tough time, but we’re all in a good place now.’
