I should have been blooming but I didn’t know how to keep my baby safe
Mental health activist Hope Virgo writes poignantly about being pregnant while in recovery from anorexia
PREGNANT. The word stared back at me as I sat there on the bathroom floor in complete and utter shock. My emotions roll-ercoastered between excitement, relief and complete terror.
It was November 19, 2021, and I had no idea just how much pregnancy would test me – or my eating disorder.
Despite having been in recovery from anorexia for 14 years, blood tests had shown that my oestrogen levels remained very low. My husband and I hadn’t been sure we would conceive without assistance, so the discovery was as thrilling as it was daunting.
I had been just 13 years old when I developed anorexia. Little did I realise that over the next four years it would become a daily torment, which would see me admitted to a mentalhealth hospital in 2007.
I was 17 and would not go home again for a year.
As I sat there on the bathroom floor, aged 31, more than a decade after leaving hospital, my overriding emotion was an intense fear.
The journal BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth reported that 67 per cent of the women in one study experienced a relapse in their eating disorder while pregnant.
The rules pregnancy forces upon you do not help, particularly those around food. They say: “Avoid rare meat, raw fish, unpasteurised cheese, don’t drink too much coffee.” Your eating disorder says: “You could add a whole lot more to the ‘no-go’ list and get away with it…”
They say: “If you are a ‘normal’ weight, gain between 1st 11lb to 2st 6lb”. Your eating disorder says: “Put on the minimum, if that.”
Your eating disorder pipes up again. “I can numb the emotions to give you a sense of certainty if you listen to me.”
The shame I felt was huge. I was afraid of judgment, filled with guilt that while I should be “blooming” I couldn’t even work out how to feed myself to keep my baby safe and was consumed with doubts.
From my first midwife appointment my pregnancy had been categorised as a risk to me and to my baby but a lack of services meant I couldn’t access support.
In my second trimester, issues around the baby’s growth meant extra scans and additional support from a dietitian.
I knew I finally had to talk honestly to the medics, my husband, mum and sister and share the thought patterns I was so ashamed of.
I was scared about the baby, scared of hurting it and of letting everyone down. Being open was the only way to cope.
I knew that I never wanted to get unwell again, so with my medical team we worked out a plan of action. It included coping mechanisms for me and ways others could spot that I was struggling.
With just a month until my baby is born, I know I am lucky. While I have support, there are thousands who don’t, thousands stuck in pregnancies they find impossible to navigate.
We need to ensure help is there, that conversations can happen, and people realise that just because someone is on the right trajectory when it comes to pregnancy weight gain, it doesn’t mean they are OK.
● Hope Virgo is founder of Dump the Scales, a campaign that calls for adequate GP training around eating disorders. Her new book, You Are Free (Even If You Don’t Feel Like It), £9.99; SPCK Publishing, is out now.