A mother has told how she feared she’d never see her baby grow up – after BOTH of their hearts failed.
Louiser Chapman, 24, nearly died when her placenta tore from her womb and she suffered a serious haemorrhage losing a litre of blood – a fifth of her total.
She was rushed in for an emergency c-section but during the op she suffered an anaphylactic shock reaction to an antibiotic.
Her heart stopped for seven minutes – triggering six days memory loss – and the 24-year-old had to be told every ten minutes that she had given birth to a baby girl.
Little Olivia weighed just 3lbs and had a hole in her heart, but the family were delighted when they were allowed to go home.
But the worst was yet to come, when tiny Olivia stopped breathing after suffering cold symptoms, and hero Louiser performed CPR and saved her daughter’s life.
The little fighter has needed lots of treatment, but now four-months-old, she’s back home and the pair have an extra special bond.
The former cabin crew worker from Warnham, West Sussex, said: “There was a point when I really didn’t think we’d get get here – we really thought we’d lose Olivia.
“It has been incredibly tough, but it’s really amazing to be here at this point.
“If you met Olivia now you would never know she had been through so much – she’s so happy.”
Louiser had a perfectly normal pregnancy until 30 weeks, when she started feeling an excruciating pain in her stomach while she was taking a bath in October last year.
She called to her three-year-old son Charlie to bring the phone and she called an ambulance – and that’s the last thing she remembers.
The little hero came to the rescue and his fast reactions meant doctors could respond quickly.
Her partner Oliver Kernahan, 33, a mechanic, said: “Luckily I came home just as the paramedics arrived and found Charlie at the door.
“We’re so proud of him.”
She was rushed to the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, West Sussex, where a scan revealed her placenta had torn from her womb.
She was transferred to Royal Sussex County Hospital for a caesarean but had a reaction to cefuroxime and doctors desperately battled to resuscitate her.
Louiser was put in an induced coma for ten hours and her tiny ten-week premature daughter spent the first days of her life in an incubator.
When Louiser came out of her coma, she was left with a short-term memory – likely due to the trauma – and nurses wrote her a birth diary to record the precious moments she had lost.
Louiser said: “I really can’t remember anything about giving birth.
“My partner Oliver and the doctors had to fill me in on everything that happened so everything I know is second hand.
“It was so upsetting – it’s so important for new mums to bond with their babies when they’re born, and I couldn’t do it.
“They wrote down when Olivia was born and how much she weighed, as well as who had come to visit me in case I forgot.
“It was lovely as when I woke each morning, I got upset as I had forgotten what happened yesterday. So looking at my diary helped me.”
Two weeks later, as she was slowly starting to recover in the baby unit, Louiser was hit by a second blow – Olivia had a hole in her heart.
“I’ll never forget it,” she said.
“They came over and told us that she had a small hole in her heart.
“They were saying they were confident it would close on its own, but it was horrible to hear.
“You automatically think of the worst that could happen, that we could lose her.”
Olivia gained enough weight and was feeding so well that she was stable enough to go home.
But eight days later, Olivia became unresponsive and Louiser leapt into action, administering CPR with rescue breaths, saving Olivia’s life.
“I had just fed her and then lay her on my chest. I took her upstairs pulled her away from chest and she was blue and floppy,” said Louiser.
“She wasn’t breathing. I panicked, I didn’t know what to do. I was in an absolute state.
“At first I passed her to Oliver, but then my training for work kicked in. I’d been taught CPR and I started giving her rescue breaths. Finally she gave out a cry.”
She was rushed to East Surrey Hospital. Olivia had caught bronchiolitis and pneumonia which had affected her upper respiratory system. .
Louiser said: “There were doctors all around her, they gave her CPR, two blood transfusions.
“It was horrific. When I later saw her in intensive care I thought, ‘How is she going to come back from this?’
“I didn’t think she would survive, there were times when I just couldn’t think of the positive.”
The family spent Christmas in hospital and after six weeks on the ward, she was allowed home – but she still has to use an oxygen tank.
Four months on, Louiser admits that life has been incredibly hard for the family.
She said: “The daily struggles are having to do everything with the oxygen. Just doing a simple five minute school run takes 20 minutes to get them ready and Olivia all connected to her portable oxygen.
“We have to always watch the oxygen tank when out.
“We haven’t been able to do anything properly as a family yet.
“But when the flu season is over I’m sure we will all go to the zoo – and we like to go and watch car drifting as Oliver is a mechanic.
“I don’t think were going to have any more children.
“The experience with Olivia has put us off having any more – especially for my partner. It’s all been a lot to cope with.”
