Mum’s shock ordeal
‘Trust your body’: Mother’s message for those expecting
I just didn’t realise it could happen so quickly COURTNEY HEY
LITTLE Freya may have been born four months early, but she was a fighter before she took her first breath, and now her mother is calling on women to stay aware of a condition common for first-time mums.
Courtney Hey, 26, of Cairns, was 21 weeks pregnant when she began feeling intense neck pain, to the point where she couldn’t move it.
But while a trip to the hospital offered no answer for her pain, a urine and blood-pressure test revealed something more.
“(Doctors) couldn’t explain why I was having neck pain but sent me home on endone and blood pressure meds,” Mrs Hey said.
“They said for me to go to my GP the next day, but I went back by ambulance at 2.30am and I didn’t leave (hospital) since.”
The cause behind her rise in blood pressure was pre-eclampsia – a common but serious disorder that can endanger the lives of women and their baby. The only cure is the birth of the child.
Mrs Hey was rushed to Townsville University Hospital on August 18.
She said while she knew pre-eclampsia was common in first pregnancies, it was rare to have it occur this early.
“Being so little, and that she was growth restricted because of the pre-eclampsia, we weren’t sure if she would make it through,” she said.
Three days later, Freya was born via C-section “crying and breathing” at 23 weeks and six days gestation, weighing just 466 grams.
Freya has been in the TUH NICU since, while Mrs Hey has been staying close by at Ronald Mcdonald House.
While some family lived in Townsville, Mrs Hey hoped they’d be back home by Christmas, and were now waiting for a bed in Cairns hospital to become available.
Because her pre-eclampsia symptoms had gone unnoticed, Mrs Hey urged women to keep up with their health checks through pregnancy.
“I knew it could happen in the first pregnancy and mum had it when I was born, so I knew there was always a risk … I just didn’t realise it could happen so quickly,” she said.
“(Doctors) can’t figure out why, even though my blood pressure was through the roof or low – why I didn’t feel dizzy or faint, I just felt normal,
“Trust your body, because it knows what is wrong and knows you need something more and needs extra help.”