A mum of triplets who had the same life-threatening condition as Jesy Nelson during her pregnancy faced a heartbreaking question from doctors.
Leila Green, 41, from Beckenham, London, welcomed her triplets prematurely at 33 weeks with her husband, James, 44, following a C-section and after conceiving naturally. The arrival of their sons Jerry, Frankie and Rafa was an overwhelming sense of joy and relief for the couple, who had previously gone through two miscarriages.
During Leila’s pregnancy with triplets, she was told she had Monochorionic, Diamniotic (MCDA), meaning that two of her babies, her identical boys Jerry and Frankie, shared a placenta but were each in their own amniotic sacs. Meanwhile, the third baby, Rafa, who is non-identical, had his own placenta and sac. Twins sharing a placenta are at risk of restricting fetal growth, and it can increase the risk of premature birth.
The condition is rare, but just this week, Little Mix star Jesy Nelson revealed that she had MCDA and was facing complications during pregnancy with her identical twins. In an emotional Instagram video with her partner Zion Foster, Jesy heartbreakingly said she was at risk of losing one or both of her unborn twins due to MCDA, also known as Mono/Di twins for short.
Jesy explained to her followers: “The type of twins we are having are called Mono/Di twins, and with that, so normally, most twins will have two placentas that they feed off of. But when you have Mono/Di twins, that means your twins live off one placenta, which can lead to lots of complications.
“One of them being one baby might take all the nutrients, the other might, which is really awful to say, but could lead to both babies dying and at the moment, I am currently pre-stage TTTS, which is twin to twin transfusion, and I’m being monitored very closely.”
Leila knows all too well the overwhelming worry that comes with MCDA as she faced the devastating question from doctors about whether to abort one of her triplets. She told the Mirror: “I had a panic attack in our anomaly scan, which lasted three hours as I was so desperate for them to tell me my babies were OK, and they wouldn’t say anything the consultant came in at the end.
“When they were running through the risk of MCDA, all these horrendous scenarios, they also offered selective reduction, which is where you’re going to abort one of them in the hope that then gives the other two a better chance.
“I found this whole conversation really upsetting, as many mums do, especially as I had buried babies before. Now, to have doctors saying that you might get a better outcome for two of them to terminate one, but even then, there’s a risk that you’ll miscarry all of them if you terminate one, it didn’t make sense to me.”
She continued: “I understand the doctors have got to tell you the downside and the risk, but when you’re so emotionally charged and if you’ve been through loss already, you’re sensitive to these kinds of conversations, and you just want to try and get through one day at a time.”
Those with MCDA can get twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), which is what Jesy is experiencing, along with growth restrictions and further complications in the pregnancy. Leila said doctors were more concerned about the identical babies because they were sharing a nutrient supply.
Offering advice to Jesy following her own worrying experience with MCDA, Leila said: “Just take it one day at a time. Don’t waste energy on working out what you’d do in disaster scenarios that may never come to fruition.”
She added: “Stay positive. Don’t let other people project their fear onto you – friends, family, and doctors might start panicking or fearing the worst, but I found it useful to say to them, ‘Right now, I have healthy babies’. Do whatever helps you stay calm – I used yoga and meditation, but whatever helps you cope with the inevitable stress.”
On dealing with MCDA throughout her pregnancy, Leila said: “MCDA was something I was nervous about. I was scanned every two weeks, from the middle point of my pregnancy onwards, because they wanted to keep on top of this to make sure there were no dangers creeping up and that all of the babies were continuing to grow.
“Every time we had a scan, they would print us reports that would give us the sizes of different parts of the baby’s bodies. I was always wanting to make sure that they were all roughly the same, because I knew that once there started to be a discrepancy, that could spell disaster, so it was something we kept an eye on.”
Leila welcomed her triplet boys via a C-section on July 8, 2022. After four weeks in hospital for Frankie and Rafa and five weeks for Jerry, they were all able to go home and have since flourished into healthy two-year-olds.
Following her experience with motherhood, Leila founded the ‘F*** Mum Guilt Movement’ – a free community of mums saying ‘yes’ to looking after themselves and ‘no’ to society’s expectations.
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