Women's Experiences of Having a Postpartum Haemorrhage In Their Own Words

On this page we have gathered women's stories about having a PPH. They vary in the places they gave birth, the reasons for the PPH, the amount of the blood loss and the effect it had on them. Their stories are told in their own words.

[Warning: If you have not yet given birth or not experienced a PPH yourself you may find these stories frightening.]

First signs of PPH

“I kept telling the midwife I felt wet down below and after a while I asked her to change the towel. Her face dropped as she looked at my bed and saw me laying in a pool of blood. I felt a bit spaced out.” - Alison

“I started to feel really odd, quite faint and a bit sick. I told the midwife and I could hardly hear myself speaking. She said I should get out of the pool. I got one leg half way over then everything went black and I collapsed.” - Cate

“I looked at my husband and thought ‘ooh, he's gone a bit green’ and I was aware of feeling a bit light-headed” - Emma

“I didn't realise what it was necessarily, but blood kept pumping out of me.” - Fiona

“Suddenly felt things were not right and asked the midwife to hold the baby as I didn't feel well. Couldn't place exactly what was wrong but felt dizzy and unsafe and somehow knew I shouldn't be holding a baby at that time.” - Steph

“I wanted to lie down. I said out loud that that it was just going to be a short rest, and that I would get up again in a minute. I think in my head I knew that I wasn't going to have the strength to get up again.” - Claire

Summoning help

“She pressed the emergency button and then everyone appeared. I felt a bit spaced out but very scared as I had looked at the blood and realised the pandemonium going on around me as they were panicking and rushing to get me back to theatre. I actually thought I was going to die. I did feel completely out of control at this point.” - Alison

“The next thing I remember was waking up on the cold floor surrounded by what seemed like loads of people. They were trying to wrap me in a towel or blanket. They kept me down on the floor for quite a while as they tried to stabilise me. I just didn't have a clue what was going on and suddenly there was a doctor telling me I had lost a lot of blood and he needed to find out why.” - Cate

“The senior midwife asked someone to hit the red button over the bed, whilst she was frantically rubbing my tummy. When the button was hit, I was aware of doors flying open and thinking ‘ooh it's just like ER’ but I had no idea what on earth they were all there for, I certainly didn't realise it was because I was bleeding all over the floor.” - Emma

“There was a sense of urgency as all the staff came running in but at the time I no longer cared. They spent ages trying to get a needle into my wrists in order to give me a drip. My blood vessels had closed, so this was difficult and left my wrists very sore and bruised afterwards.” - Fiona

“Suddenly, all hell broke loose - there were 5 midwives in there instead of the 2 normally present at a delivery, trying to sort out drips, get the placenta out and stop the bleeding that had started.” - Kate

“We called the ambulance. None of it felt rushed, Once the call was made I allowed myself to go downhill as I started to feel fairly disinterested in the baby, and nauseous and uncomfortable. I passed out as I was carried down the stairs. I was cold in the ambulance. I wondered if I was dying at this point.” - Claire

Treatment

“They started to wheel me back to theatre and I just shouted at them “I'm not leaving my baby” so they wheeled him back into theatre with me. I still remember the urgency of rushing me back to theatre and then the doctors and nurses all pushing on my abdomen and clearing blood clots from down below. I was awake through all this, it didn't hurt.” - Alison

“My blood pressure had plummeted apparently. They hooked me up to a drip which then stayed in for several hours. The doctor said I might have a ‘high tear’ so he needed to stop the bleeding. He did this by pushing wads of cotton pads up inside which was excruciatingly painful having just given birth. I was crying with pain and telling him to stop. I honestly thought it would never end. Eventually he stopped and they gave me a cup of tea, and my baby for a breastfeed!” - Cate

“They gave me an injection to force my uterus to contract. I was then whisked off to theatre. By that point I thought that if I stopped talking and closed my eyes, I might not wake up.” - Emma

“I had a syntocinon drip attached to me to try and make my uterus contract and control the bleeding, as well as saline to replace my fluid levels. They'd given me syntometrine at birth but the placenta was not coming away - it felt like the midwife was virtually pulling it out of me. When she did, you could see it was huge. My legs were feeling shaky from being in the same position and just wanted to rest. I also had a catheter put in my bladder as they didn't want it to get too full as it could affect the contracting of my uterus and stimulate further haemorrhaging.” - Kate

“The midwife responded swiftly to get the bleeding under control - got me to lie down on the carpet, gave me syntometrine, rubbed up a contraction and it stopped within a minute or two, I then delivered the placenta lying on the carpet.” - Mandy

“No-one actually said it was a PPH in the room at the time but my blood pressure dropped dramatically and another IV line was put in and Hartmans [fluids] squeezed in. Felt a bit detached from what was going on, not in control but felt the staff were in control of the situation and all would be OK.” - Steph

"They kept pummelling my stomach to stop the haemorrhage: this was very painful and I kept begging them to stop - I had no idea why they were doing this. The doctor also had his hand inside me. I felt extremely violated afterwards. No-one made any attempt to explain what had happened to me at any time - then or afterwards. " - Fiona

“The midwife hooked up some syntocinon into the drip and tried to pull on the cord. Nothing happened which I think was expected. I was prepped for surgery. I was very scared in theatre, I didn't know who all the people were and I was aware that my entire pelvis was on display and possibly that one of the doctors had her arm up to her elbow inside me. I did feel cold and exposed. My placenta had half come away and she removed the rest. My estimated blood loss was 1800ml.” - Claire

Physical Recovery

“I had to have a blood transfusion of 3 pints after my PPH. I felt very low and had to keep taking lots of iron tablets.” - Alison

“I found the first night in hospital quite scary. I was so excited to have my baby but I was scared because I couldn't stand up for more than a few seconds before feeling faint - what if I picked him up and fainted? They recommended that I have a blood transfusion as it would help me recover very quickly. I refused and said I would rather take the iron pills instead and eat lots of red meat and watercress. I was white as a sheet for days and felt really terrible.” - Cate

“I was up and about in no time. I had two units of blood so I actually felt better than after previous births where I have also lost a bit of blood.” - Claire

“A blood test showed, surprise, surprise, that I had very low iron levels. Further iron tablets helped this. I stayed in hospital 6 days after the birth - no idea how abnormal this is but women who had caesarean sections after I'd given birth went home before me. Once home, tiredness was a huge problem, more so than normal because of the blood loss. It took a few weeks to get some energy back.” - Emma

“Physically I felt there was nothing to recover from. I had a saline drip and had stitches (which did heal badly) so it took a few days before sitting and walking weren't painful, but otherwise I actually felt ready to get up and carry on as normal.” - Fiona

“I felt breathless and exhausted for about two to three weeks and was very white! The midwife said she felt I really should have gone into hospital for a transfusion but knew that I probably wouldn't want to do that, so being lovely, she prescribed iron for me instead.” - Mandy

“Physically felt very weak and dizzy each time I got out of bed. Recommended to have a blood transfusion later that day. Discharged by day 3 with iron tablets and antibiotics, and blood levels back to normal by post-natal check-up.” - Steph

Emotional recovery

“I felt quite depressed after my son's birth and I think this was due more to the PPH than the caesarean.” - Alison

“Emotionally I didn't let it bother me that much. I am very sad that my positive birth experience ended that way. However when I look back at my experience I only really think about the best bits.” - Cate

“My feelings about the birth were talked through with my midwife which helped, and I didn't feel that we had done anything wrong. I was still happy to say that my baby had been born at home without feeling any guilt that it was irresponsible.” - Claire

“Every time I closed my eyes, I'd get flashbacks of people standing over me and their shadows kept moving in on me. As I kept crying about it and showing little interest in my baby, they eventually diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder. It took a while to understand quite how traumatic the whole process had been, cried a lot and couldn't understand why I wasn't feeling great waves of love for my baby. Realise now this was perfectly natural and a result of the trauma but it would have helped to have someone explain that.” - Emma

“Emotionally it took me 6 months before I realised I had gone through shock and then post-natal depression and for me to finally tell my partner, who is my soul mate. I didn't tell anyone else, it was either too personal or else they didn't see to understand what I had experienced. I was furious that I was left in such a visible state of distress and almost nothing done to help me. Thanks to my partner and also venting my anger by writing to the hospital I have managed to move on.” - Fiona

Reflections

“I didn't feel in danger when the PPH happened but I realised later that not so many years ago I might have been a statistic and may not have survived giving birth.” - Steph

“I would rather have this post-birth thing happen than to have had a very traumatic birth itself. I fell in love with my baby immediately.” - Cate

“On the whole, it was still a great birth experience.” - Mandy

“A PPH is a very random event. I lost loads of blood and wasn't on this planet. Did I nearly die? That's a weird feeling.” - Claire

“I wanted my next birth to be as un-medicalised as possible and at home and in fact the baby was delivered at home before we'd even managed to ring the midwife. It was perfect. This birth helped blow away the cobwebs from that first experience.” - Fiona

“Women need to know it's not their fault.” - Steph

Unanswered questions

“This makes me worried about future labours - will it happen again?”

“It still isn't clear to me why I had a PPH. Anaemia was mentioned vaguely to me but I wasn't given a real explanation.”

“Was it my fault?”

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To read about PPH from a man's point of view, click here.