When Wendy Andrews went for a routine check-up at 31 weeks and six days pregnant, her blood pressure was dangerously high at 150/120. This signalled pre-eclampsia, a condition that often forces early delivery.
Her reading was marked as concerning and midwives referred her to Canberra Hospital’s foetal medicine unit, which she says helped her deliver a healthy baby.
“If the foetal medicine unit hadn’t been there, we would have been delivering right then,” Andrews says.
Instead, doctors used medication and bed rest to delay birth and strengthen her baby.
“They explained to me that every day she could stay in makes her that little bit stronger, it increases her chance of survival.”
At 35 weeks, after exhausting pregnancy-safe blood pressure medicines, Andrews underwent a C-section. Her daughter, Eleanor, weighed 1.9kg, needed no resuscitation and spent only two weeks in special care to learn to feed.
“We are so lucky that she came out perfectly fine with no initial health conditions due to her early birth,” Andrews says. “I don’t know how things would have turned out if she had been delivered at 32 weeks.”
Today, Eleanor is meeting all milestones and is a happy, albeit a little small (3rd percentile) little girl.
Wendy reflects on the experience a very steep learning curve and her preterm birth journey an isolating experience.
“I knew that preterm babies were a thing, but you only really hear about the really premature ones. Being the first in our friendship group to have children, it wasn’t really something that was talked about,” she said.
“I think preterm births affect so many people but it is not talked about until it happens to you. Since having Eleanor early, so many people in our lives have told us about their children who have come early and how scary it was. Raising awareness and empowering mothers is so important.”
