When I was pregnant, 17 years ago now, I began to develop high blood pressure (pre-eclampsia) and was taken into hospital at 30 weeks. Looking at staying there for the next ten weeks, I began to feel quite homesick by the 36th week. My blood pressure, remaining high, had appeared to reach a plateau. It was a Saturday morning whern I awoke and realised I couldn't see, due to a weird light pattern in front of my eyes. I also found my mental processes were significantly slower than normal ( I couldn't remember how to go to the toilet and I'm not kidding). Having informed the medical staff I was attached to a monitor where they discovered my BP was topping off at 200/120. At this point I was given steroids for the baby's lungs and ordered to rest, in the hope that I would get through to Monday when I would have an elective caesarian. Throughout the day my headache got progressively worse, until I was vomiting profusely and was unable to stop! My ex came to visit and we were just sitting quietly, when all of a sudden I felt my head being pulled back, like I was a marrionette and someone was pulling my strings. Then I heard an alarm and looking over at the BP, I saw the figures of 336/256 and that was about the last thing I saw for some time.

When I woke I felt like death (literally), but after seeing my daughter was OK, I fell back asleep. The next three days were hazy, as my organs would fail, then rally back and then fail again! I was in the ICU for 5 days, before I was stabilised. At that point, being compos mentis, I was told what had happened to me: I had had a fatal spike in my BP, which had caused a seizure, which then caused a cardiac arrest, followed by organ failure. They had no time to get me down to theatre and had to just pull round the curtain and perform an emergency caesarian there and then on my bed! Five minutes later my daughter was born and I was then defibbed!

I was extremely lucky that I survived; this being illustrated by someone else on the ward developing eclampsia and both the mother and child dying.

I don't want to make anyone terrified, as eclampsia is, thankfully, pretty rare. However, hopefully, this story will remind all pregnant women not to ignore their BP, even if they don't feel unwell!