Helena Cornes, 37, was just two weeks away from her due date when she suffered a placental abruption
A new mum who nearly lost her life during childbirth has recounted the terrifying night her “smooth” pregnancy turned into a desperate race against time. Helena Cornes, 37, experienced a placental abruption two weeks before her due date, a distressing ordeal which also endangered her son’s life.
The health and wellness coach was winding down at the end of the day when she sensed something was terribly wrong. “I got into bed with my partner, and we were just laughing and joking, saying I can’t believe in two weeks’ time we could have a baby here,” she says.
Just moments later, she began to bleed. “I thought my waters had broken… and I was like, something just didn’t feel right,” Helena says. “But that day the baby had been moving loads, you could see him physically moving, kicking and everything.”
Upon going to the loo, she realised she was “dripping blood” and immediate panic ensued. Helena rang her sister Liz to drive her to the hospital as her partner Jake needed to sort out care for his daughter, whom he has with an ex-partner.
“The whole way there, I was still bleeding and he’d stopped moving,” she says of the car journey. “So, I was just sitting in the car going, ‘I think he’s died. He’s died.’ I couldn’t get my breath.”
When they arrived at the Royal Stoke Hospital, the entrance doors were locked for the evening. Liz went to park the car whilst Helena started pounding on the glass.
“I was banging on the glass… I was in such a state of panic,” she says. “The doors opened. I was running. Blood was still coming out of me.”
She recalls sprinting “screaming and shaking” through the hospital corridors desperately seeking help. “I mean, if I could look back on that now on the CCTV, you know, it must have looked like I was deranged,” she says. “It was just crazy, but I knew something was seriously wrong.”
Eventually on a bed and surrounded by medics, Helena prepared for the worst. An ultrasound showed her baby’s heartbeat remained strong, a brief moment of relief, rapidly destroyed by the realisation that her own life was now at risk.
She was experiencing a placental abruption, meaning her placenta was separating from her womb, causing massive blood loss. Though she had never encountered the condition before, Helena understood the severity of the situation when she spotted the alarm on the nurses’ faces and witnessed increasing numbers of staff rush into the room.
Helena had two cannulas and a catheter fitted before being wheeled into theatre, where she was put under general anaesthetic and underwent an emergency C-section. “I just thought I was going to die, and that was it. ‘I’m going to die,'” Helena says.
She regained consciousness hours later, awakening in agony and initially unaware that both she and her baby had made it through. “I didn’t know what was happening,” she says.
“And I mean I felt absolutely terrified because there was no time, (the surgeon) had to cut me open and they pulled the baby out, so it was a very rough c-section.”
She struggled to grasp what had occurred. “When I came around, they did tell me I’d been through a lot. And they said, ‘Both of you nearly died’,” Helena says. “And that’s when it hit me, I think, because I just couldn’t comprehend it at all.”
Her son Elwood was rushed to the intensive care unit with jaundice and a minor chest infection, though he was otherwise in good health. Helena herself needed a transfusion after haemorrhaging 2.5 litres of blood.
“A lot of people see a c-section as the easy route, but my god, that pain trying to stand up the first time, my whole body was like jelly. I was just shaking so much,” she says.
Helena’s partner and relatives had waited nervously whilst she underwent surgery and later struggled to watch how much agony she endured. But she was finally able to cradle little Elwood for the first time.
“It didn’t feel real,” she says. “I couldn’t believe it was my baby. I think because I had never seen myself with a baby, it all just seemed so surreal. I was so desperate to just hold him and cuddle him, but the pain was unbearable at times.”
Helena, from Stoke-on-Trent, hadn’t envisioned herself as a mother until her mid-30s. She fell pregnant swiftly and despite experiencing nausea, she was deemed low-risk and even given the option for a home birth. The initial plan was for a natural delivery in hospital, with a caesarean section not even on her radar.
“I was very strongly convinced, you know, I’m going to push this baby out,” she says. “And I was excited about it in a way. I’d watched countless vaginal birth videos on YouTube and I was really excited to do that.”
Despite the happy outcome, Helena found it challenging to accept that her birth experience in April didn’t go as planned. “I think when you have to go through something like that, like an emergency C-section and it’s not in your plan, it’s very difficult to accept and come to terms with,” she admits.
“I’ll probably never have another baby, and I’ll never get to experience what it’s like to have a contraction or deliver a baby vaginally. I think that’s probably the hardest thing to accept.”
Having had time to recover and reflect on her experience, Helena expresses deep gratitude towards the “incredible” hospital staff. The ordeal has also brought her closer to her little boy.
“I think it brought us a lot closer, and it made me love him just more than I could ever imagine,” she says. “I’m just so much more grateful for life and enjoying this time with my baby. I think any kind of trauma like that really opens your eyes to how your life can change, literally overnight.”
She adds that she doesn’t want her story to scare expectant mums, but hopes it will serve as a reminder to trust their instincts when something feels off during pregnancy.