Having a C-section nearly killed me

NUZZLING little Lucas, young mum Katie Holly Edwards looks back on his delivery and can’t believe she survived.

Her bouncing bundle of energy was delivered by caesarean section nearly a year ago.

But Katie Holly suffered an increasingly common birth complication, leaving her haemorrhaging so badly she was left with only half a teacup of her own blood in her system.

Doctors say the risk of the condition she had, placenta percreta, is linked to mums who have repeated C-sections.

The life-threatening condition is caused by a woman’s placenta continuing to grow and can eventually cause the womb to rupture.

As a result of the complication, it’s not uncommon for women to lose staggering amounts of blood during delivery, with some requiring more than 40 pints to keep them alive.

In the case of Katie Holly, she had to have a massive transfusion to survive.

Doctors also had to resort to hooking her up to a system which transfused her own blood back into her, to keep her from dying.

“It has taken me almost a year to recover from the nightmare of almost dying and leaving my children motherless,” said Katie Holly.

“I suffer from posttraumatic stress with flashbacks to the ordeal.”

What should have been a happy memory – one of life’s unforgettable days – quickly turned to horror for Katie Holly, of Kinloss, Moray.

The mum of Phoebe, 14, Tamzin, 11, Trystan, 9, and Olivia, 7, was well versed to the maternity unit routine.

All four of her previous deliveries had been by caesarean, so she was expecting the delivery of Lucas to go as smoothly as those.

But it quickly became clear there was to be nothing straightforward about this birth.

A routine scan at 20 weeks had revealed her placenta had grown out of her womb wrapping itself around her bladder like a tree.

Despite this, she felt confident everything was going to be fine, placing her trust in the medical team around her.

But she haemorrhaged so badly she had only half a tea cup of her own blood left in her body, following Lucas’s delivery.

“Removing the placenta took an eight-hour surgery and caused the massive blood loss,” she said.

“I was rushed to intensive care afterwards with my life in