Latest news with #postnatal
The Sun
01-07-2025
- Health
- The Sun
I blamed my ‘baby brain' on being a tired parent until a seizure in the night led to horror diagnosis
A NEW mum dismissed her fatigue and headaches as "baby brain" - but woke up from a seizure with her terrified family staring at her in horror. Amy Dyer, 37, believed her extreme tiredness and low concentration were simply part of life as a parent. 11 11 11 She put off going to the doctor's about her symptoms, thinking there was "nothing unusual" going on. But after being struck by a seizure in her sleep, Amy received a devastating diagnosis. Amy, a computer science teacher, from Cullompton, Devon, said: "I'd had our little boy and was juggling life as a mum and teaching. "I thought I had what everyone calls 'baby brain' tiredness, low concentration, feeling foggy. "It all just felt like part of motherhood, especially after having a baby. "I didn't go to the doctors because I genuinely thought it was just postnatal exhaustion, maybe low iron or fatigue. Nothing unusual." But in December 2022, after experiencing "terrible" headaches, low concentration and eventually a seizure in her sleep, Amy was rushed to the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital. "I started having headaches, terrible ones that would wake me up in the middle of the night," she said. "Looking back, I realise my concentration levels were much lower than they should have been. "I was startled to wake up to my sister, Chloe and husband, Will, staring at me in horror, I thought they were joking, how could I have had a seizure if I was asleep?" Simple hand test that could reveal if you have a hidden brain tumour At the hospital she suffered a second seizure and a CT scan revealed a space-occupying lesion in her brain. She was prescribed anti-seizure medication and given an MRI scan. "One minute I was in bed, the next, I was in hospital, facing brain scans and big decisions," Amy recalled. "It was dreadful." 11 11 After further tests, Amy was referred to University Hospital Plymouth for a biopsy and, in May 2023, was diagnosed with a low-grade astrocytoma, a type of brain tumour. Faced with the option to wait and monitor the tumour or have surgery, Amy chose to undergo an awake craniotomy in June 2023. Amy said: "I heard the words tumour, and my world changed. "I didn't want to wait to see if the tumour would develop, so I chose surgery. "The risks scared me: seizures, complications, even death. But I knew I couldn't leave it and risk it becoming inoperable." Symptoms of astrocytoma Astrocytoma is a common type of primary brain tumour, which means it starts in the brain instead of spreading there. Astrocytomas start in stem cells, which eventually develop in to one of the different types of brain cells, such as astroctyes. Astrocytes are brain cells that connect and support nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. As astrocytes are found throughout the brain, astrocytomas can occur in many different areas of the brain. These tumours grow from cells that are vital in processing information in the brain, so they can disrupt the function of whichever area of the brain they are growing in. Some of these tumours grow in the cerebellum, which controls balance. They can also occur in the optic pathways, which are involved in sight. So, symptoms can be very different between people affected by these tumours. That being said, common astrocytoma symptoms could include: Headaches Difficulty speaking Change in vision, like double vision or blurriness Cognitive difficulties, like trouble thinking or remembering Seizures (epilepsy) Source: The Brain Tumour Charity On 8 June 2023, Amy underwent the procedure at University Hospital Plymouth. Surgeons initially kept her awake to monitor brain function, asking her to move her left hand, before placing her under general anaesthetic to complete the operation. The surgery was considered a success, and Amy spent five days in hospital. "Thankfully, I didn't lose mobility on my left side," she said. "They weren't able to tell me the percentage of the tumour they removed, but I'm happy they felt the operation was a success." 11 11 11 Further testing revealed the tumour was a more aggressive grade 3 astrocytoma. "They sent it away to be tested and found out that it was in fact a grade 3 astrocytoma," she said. "Doctors asked to keep some of the tumour to aid research which I agreed." Since then, she has undergone physiotherapy, occupational therapy, 33 sessions of radiotherapy, and oral chemotherapy. She now has routine scans every four months. In June 2025, she received a clear scan, three years after her first symptoms. Amy described this as "great news". She said: "I've learned to take life slower. "Before, I was on a hamster wheel. Now I value people, time and memories more than possessions. "I haven't had a seizure since the first two in 2022, and I received a clear scan for June 2025 which is great news." Amy is now fundraising for Brain Tumour Research by participating in the 88 Squats a Day in July Challenge to raise money for a cure. Katrina Jones, Head of Community Fundraising at Brain Tumour Research said: "Amy's strength and determination in sharing her story is truly inspiring, by opening up about her experience, she's not only raising vital awareness of the signs and symptoms of brain tumours but also helping to highlight the urgent need for more funding into research. "We're incredibly grateful for her support and proud to have her as part of our fundraising community." 11
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
'Backbone of health': new plan for rural maternity care
An outback woman was fully prepared for a four-hour trip to the closest hospital to give birth. Living in Lightning Ridge, in far western NSW, the expectant mum was pragmatic about the long journey ahead. But she had not anticipated the dearth of basic care once she and her baby returned home. The woman, an emergency worker, told a NSW rural health inquiry of her experience waiting for weeks to see a GP or a nurse to help her with post-birth complications and an unsettled baby. "As a first-time mum, being pregnant in Lightning Ridge was downright scary and being a mum to a newborn ... is harder than it should be," she wrote to the 2022 inquiry. Stories like these shared at federal and state inquiries in recent years, along with the continued closure of rural birthing services across Australia, has prompted a new plan for maternity care in the bush. Peak health bodies, including the Rural Doctors Association and the National Rural Health Alliance, have backed the first rural maternity framework to be released since 2008. The framework urges government investment in maternity services co-designed with locals, including First Nations communities, along with a focus on continuity of care from known clinicians before, during and after birth. There should also be clear access to miscarriage and abortion care and a guarantee of telehealth or outreach services in remote areas. Scholarships for rural students could be established to get more locals into maternity health roles, in a "grow your own" program, the framework said. There was a 41 per cent reduction in maternity services across Australia in the decade to 2011, mostly in small towns, and larger regional birthing units have been frequently placed on bypass due to staff shortages. New strategies were needed to ensure country families receive equitable care, National Rural Health Commissioner Jenny May said. "A rural maternity service is the backbone of healthcare service delivery - keeping families close, communities strong, and ensuring safe beginnings for the next generation, while supporting the sustainability of local industry through a stable and thriving population," Professor May said. Major regional maternity services have been placed on bypass intermittently across several states, including in Gladstone, Queensland, and Camperdown, Victoria. Those services resumed in 2023 and 2024. In NSW, Tamworth hospital is under immense pressure, while Bathurst, Lithgow and Kempsey maternity units are on the brink of closing down, a 2024 rural health inquiry found. Those kind of scenarios increased the risk faced by rural women and their babies, Rural Doctors Association president RT Lewandowski said. "Women and families often have to travel significant distances or relocate to a town or city with birthing facilities which is expensive, stressful and not acceptable for rural families living in Australia in 2025," Dr Lewandowski said.
The Guardian
17-06-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
The Netherlands' world-leading postnatal care facing crisis, unions warn
A key pillar of Dutch maternity services that has led to the Netherlands being hailed as a world leader in postnatal care is under threat, healthcare unions in the country have warned. The Netherlands has long prided itself on its unique system of kraamzorg (maternity care), whereby a maternity care assistant comes to a new family's home for eight days after a baby's birth, caring for mother and infant. But on Tuesday, five healthcare unions are expected to present a manifesto and petition of almost 15,000 signatures to MPs in The Hague, warning that a shortage of labour and competition from other care jobs have left the system facing crisis. The petition calls for a guarantee of the future of good kraamzorg for all mothers and newborns in the Netherlands. The unions want a dedicated ministerial representative and better pay, including for 'waiting' time, where care workers have to be available in case babies are born but receive about €11.50 (£9.80) for an eight-hour shift, before tax. A typical contract of 130 hours a month includes 244 to 265 hours on standby, according to the FNV trade union. 'Last year there were 500 families without a maternity care assistant,' said Daniëlle Verveen, a care assistant from Krommenie, near Amsterdam. 'And the expectation is that this will increase up to 2034, in just 10 years, to 37,000 families without kraamzorg.' Marloes Kortland, from the CNV union, said the kraamzorg system of supporting new parents, checking babies' health and helping with tricky newborn challenges such as breastfeeding was a one-off and deserved to be preserved. 'The Netherlands is the only country that has this care,' she said. 'In the countries around us, women stay for much longer in hospital but here, the care for mother and children is taken up straight away by the maternity care assistants. 'But the problem is that there is a shortage of care assistants, the work pressure is ever greater and more people are leaving. 'Kraamzorg demands a lot of flexibility from people because you never know when a baby will be born … and if you have a family yourself, it is very difficult to combine the two.' Almost one in seven babies are born at home in the Netherlands and, at such a birth, the assistant is present alongside a midwife. In a hospital or maternity unit birth, women are typically discharged within hours and the care worker then visits every day to monitor mother and baby. The system, mostly paid for through health insurance, offers between 24 and 80 hours of care. But in periods such as the summer holiday it is creaking at the seams, said GreenLeft MP and former midwife Elke Slagt-Tichelman. 'If there's a peak with births in a region, it can be exhausting for the maternity care assistants to get the schedule organised, and sometimes parents get less assistance,' she said. Although vital, she added, the job of maternity care assistant was challenging and 'not attractive' from a remunerative point of view. 'Like taking care of the elderly, it is a really underpaid job,' she said. But Verveen – who said that in three years she had saved a 24-hour-old girl from choking and helped 200 families – said the profession had a value far beyond income. 'There is something magical about life as a maternity carer,' she said. 'You help a family start up a new life.'
The Sun
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Reality star rushed to hospital just days after giving birth and reveals she's been on a drip for three days
A REALITY TV star has been rushed back to hospital weeks after giving birth - and praised her partner as her "knight in shining armour." The Made In Chelsea personality, who is married to fellow E4 show alum Oliver Proudlock, 36, likened her second maternity journey to being "in the trenches." 7 7 7 7 Emma Connolly, 33, who appeared in the show briefly, and her spouse share two children - Levi who was born in March, and Bonnie Lou, three. Yet her post natal experience has suffered a setback three months after giving birth to her son and she took to Instagram to reveal she's in the medical ward. It comes just days after her kids were in A&E with a sickness bug. Emma captured an image of her spouse carrying two coffees to her hospital bed. He proved the perfect multi-tasker, carrying little Levi strapped to his front and offering a beaming, get-well smile. She wrote in her image caption: "My knight in shining armour," before adding a series of Emoji love heart icons. Emma then posted an image of her baby sleeping and outlined her medical ordeal in text on top. She told how she was admitted to hospital with "chronic pain" and "flu like symptoms" before she added: "I was diagnosed with acute mastitis and ended up spending three days on IV antibiotics." Have YOU got a story or an amazing picture or video? Email exclusive@ and you could even get PAID She told how "absolutely incredible" Oliver was left at home to look after their toddler and baby. Emma added: "It was honestly the hardest few days of my life and I really don't say that lightly. Made In Chelsea's Oliver Proudlock reveals wife is pregnant with their second baby as she shows off bump "But I'm so grateful for the amazing care I received and the amazing support from my Ol." Another social media slide showed her hugging a private midwife, dubbed The Post Natal Package, as she sat propped up on the pillows of her hospital bed. In a lengthy message, model Emma wrote: "I don't even know where to begin when it comes to this incredible woman. "She was by my side for the birth of my son, supported me at home in those raw, early days and scooped me up without hesitation this week. "I've called her more times than I can count, asking everything from 'is this poo the right colour?' to 'are my boobs going to blow off?' and never once did she make me feel silly or alone. "She made me feel seen, supported, capable and confident when I needed it most. "And she's made me laugh more times than I've cried, which is saying a lot. "I truly adore her. She's been nothing short of an angel in my life." Yet she rounded off her posts with an image showing her lying on the hospital bed, with her little boy resting on her stomach. Emma is now back at home recovering. BABY NO. 2 Emma and husband Proudlock welcomed Levi in March. Announcing the news, proud dad Proudlock said: "He's here. Our hearts are fuller, our home louder, and our arms forever occupied. "Levi Fox Proudlock, the perfect piece to complete our family of four." The couple are already parents to daughter Bonnie Lou, who was born in May 2022. Oliver and Emma began dating in 2014 when she messaged him on social media about his earring after he'd appeared on Made In Chelsea. They announced their engagemen t in August 2018 after Oliver got down on one knee during a romantic trip to Gothenburg, Sweden. The pair's wedding was postponed due to Covid lockdown regulations in 2020, with them eventually tying the knot during a small church ceremony in Fulham, London, on December 15 2020. 7 7
The Guardian
24-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- The Guardian
I'm feasting on the contents of hedgerows like a horse in plimsolls – and I've never felt so healthy
I had a daughter during one of the bone-cold early months of this year, which means that my full-time job is now to produce a yield. Between the hours of dawn and midnight, with a few lactic minutes in between, I am a feeding machine for a new person. And it is this, perhaps, that has led to my somewhat strange new eating habits. Pregnancy may traditionally be the time associated with cravings and aversions – the old cliches of sardines and jam, coal and creosote, bread and crackers. But here, in my postnatal feeding frenzy, I'm eating nettles by the handful. I am chomping on sticky weed. I have been biting the heads off dandelions (bitter – like really serious dark chocolate) and sucking the nectar from inside honeysuckle. This recent chlorophyll gala has, of course, coincided with England's greatest month: May. Some of us love the look of May, some of us enjoy the smells. But for me, this year, the greatest heady, verdant, leaf-rich pleasure of my life is to eat May by the bushel. The sheer amount of dilute dog pee I'm ingesting must be through the roof, I suppose, but I don't really care. The number of edible plants and flowers in Britain right now is dazzling. My latest love is a plant called hedge garlic. Or, if you're in the Midlands like me, Jack by the hedge (he sounds like the villain from a Grimms' fairytale, or the kind of singer-songwriter we all regrettably slept with in our twenties). Alliaria petiolata, to give it its Latin name, is a wild member of the brassica family and has a thin, whitish taproot scented like horseradish, triangular-to-heart-shaped leaves and small white flowers. Friends, once you see it, it's everywhere. You can eat it from towpaths and bike lanes and public parks if, like me, you're not embarrassed to be seen bending down beside a lamp-post and pulling up your lunch. If you don't live in the sort of lush, woodland world where wild garlic covers the ground like concrete then hedge garlic is a fantastic alternative; the taste is oniony, garlicky and even a little mustardy. Of course, like absolutely everything that grows wild, it has a toxic lookalike in the form of lily of the valley. In fact, once you start Googling, pretty much everything edible seems to have a potentially dangerous twin, from mushrooms to flowers to roots. Buttercups are extremely poisonous, as are daffodils. So please make sure you are referring either to an expert or a very well illustrated book before you start to chow down on your local undergrowth, and it's a good idea to wash anything you pick in salt water to get rid of insects, as well as dog wee. But to be extra safe you could stick to these few, extremely identifiable friends: nettles (both the leaves and the seeds), dandelions, clover, sticky weed (that plant that people squished against your school jumper when you were little and is sometimes known as cleavers) and daisies. A friend of mine serves up slices of bread and butter topped with daisies to her small children as a mind-bending treat. She is yet to be burned as a witch. Of course, I am in the incredibly privileged position of living somewhere in which food is, to a greater or lesser degree, widely available. I am able to boil rice and buy eggs and stock up on strawberries because I am a relatively wealthy woman living in a country that has not quite, as yet, cut itself off entirely from global food markets. I am not eating undergrowth out of necessity, and for this I am grateful every day. Am I worried about the sewage in our rivers and the microplastics in our soil and the pesticides leaking into our ponds? Of course I am. But it is also true that Britain right now is a lush and emerald salad bar that I cannot hold back from. Pesto, bhajis, soups, salads, pizzas, pakoras, fritters, sauces – I'm putting these plants in everything. I'm literally mowing down the greenery around my house, munching through the stalks and leaves like a small, pink horse in a pair of plimsolls and I don't care who sees. Because my iron levels are up, my skin is good and it's all gloriously free. Just imagine what I'll be like when the apples and blackberries arrive. Nell Frizzell is a journalist and author
