I WENT BACK TO WORK WITH SEVERE ANAEMIA

ONE mother who would have benefited from a check-up at nine months is Mary Broddle, now 45. The embroidery tutor from Nottingham lost more than a litre of blood after she gave birth to her second son, Leo, and developed severe irondeficiency anaemia, which can weaken the immune system and lead to heart problems.

Mary assumed her tiredness and pale skin were due to the stress of looking after a baby and her older son, Robin, and didn’t mention her symptoms at her six-week check with her GP.

Mary returned to work – which was then as an engineer – when her son was nine months and was regularly so exhausted she feared she would crash her car. Leo was 18 months when she finally booked a GP appointment and was diagnosed. ‘If I’d had a check at the time I went back to work, they would have seen my iron levels hadn’t come back up again,’ she says. ‘I could have been given strong iron tablets, which would have made me feel better.’