A mum has told of the unusual signs she had picked up a life-threatening sepsis infection during labour.
Olivia Gough, 29, "thought it was normal” to feel faint after giving birth to baby Amy, because she'd lost a lost of blood. In the days after being discharged, she felt faint, achy and had flu-like symptoms.
When her blood pressure dropped, Olivia was told to go straight to the obstetrics emergency department in her local hospital. She was diagnosed with sepsis - caused because some of the placenta was still inside her.
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Amy, a teacher, from Belfast, says she still suffers side effects four years on and wants other mums to look out for signs they might be seriously ill after labour.
“I’m very lucky - I had no idea how ill I was, at all," she said.
"I could’ve so easily lost my life. I felt rough, but I didn’t think it was that serious.”
Olivia’s pregnancy was “relatively” normal - other than experiencing severe morning sickness. She gave birth to Amy at the Ulster Hospital, at 4:19am on January 13, 2020.
Amy wasn’t breathing when she was born, so doctors resuscitated her while Olivia’s doctors manually delivered her placenta.
“I was losing a lot of blood,” Olivia added. "It was all very blurry - I don’t remember Amy being resuscitated. I woke up, and everything seemed fine.”
Olivia and Amy were discharged after two nights in the hospital, but Olivia was still feeling faint. With Amy being her first child, she thought it was normal to feel faint after childbirth.
She called her midwife saying she “felt like I was going to collapse” - but the midwife suggested this was normal after losing a lot of blood.
“I was home for exactly a week after Amy was born,” she added.
“I remember it was the Sunday, and I’d mentioned to James that I was feeling quite unwell. He said I should ring my GP in the morning.”
Olivia called her GP at 8am on January 20, who told her to come in three hours later.
She went in by herself, while her mum, 57-year-old Jean Rue looked after Amy at home.
The GP tested Olivia’s heart rate, blood pressure and temperature - and said she needed to go straight to the obstetrics emergency unit at Ulster Hospital.
Olivia said: “My temperature and resting heart rate were really high - and my blood pressure was really low.
“I phoned the emergency unit, but they told me to ‘grab some lunch, get Amy sorted, and don’t be panicking.’
“Coming into the hospital, I felt very faint and unwell - but I thought I was just really hungry.”
The new mum was triaged as she walked into the hospital - and immediately seen by a doctor.
Olivia’s doctor tested her vitals - the same way her GP did, and went behind her curtain to make a phone call.
"I was in bed, by the phone,” Olivia added.
“I could hear the doctor saying: ‘This lady has sepsis, come right now'. I didn’t even think they were talking about me.”
Olivia says her stay at hospital was a “blur” - but the next thing she knew, a doctor had placed a cannula in both arms, ready to administer IV antibiotics.
The doctor tested her blood and breast milk - which both had high infection markers.
Over the next seven days, Olivia’s care team found that not all of Amy’s placenta had been removed from her body - so they gave her medication to break it down.
As the placenta left her body, her infection markers began to drop. “I was lucky not to need a blood transfusion,” she said. “I was discharged, over a week after being admitted, with a month’s worth of oral antibiotics.”
Four years on, Olivia says she still suffers from remaining effects of the sepsis - despite being “very lucky” she didn’t go into septic shock.
She suffers from memory loss, fatigue and brain fog - and says her life is moving at a “slower pace” now.
The mum-of-one wants to raise awareness of postnatal sepsis - because she thinks the symptoms can be very easily missed by new mums.
“If you don’t feel right, get checked - then get a second opinion,” she added.
“If you feel unwell in any sort of way - faint, achy, flu-like symptoms - just go and get checked. A simple blood test can tell you whether or not you have an infection - catch it early. Your body isn’t strong enough to fight some of these things after giving birth.”
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