A Mother's Harrowing Brush with Death After Childbirth
A mother has shared her terrifying near-death experience that occurred just hours after giving birth to her second child, an event that has left her profoundly changed and fearful of having another baby.
Hannah, a stay-at-home mother of two, experienced clinical death for approximately one minute following a complicated delivery, during which she describes seeing the room from above and encountering a powerful white light.
Complicated Pregnancy and Birth
Hannah's journey began with a pregnancy complicated by intrauterine growth restriction, a condition where the baby grows slower than expected in the womb. This affected both her pregnancies, resulting in her first son weighing just 4lbs 13oz and her second weighing 5lbs 10oz.
She went into natural labour at 36 weeks, delivering her baby in a children's hospital due to a pre-birth diagnosis of bowel obstruction that required immediate surgery for the newborn. Initially, everything seemed normal following the 1:33am birth.
The Warning Signs Begin
"I was bleeding normally, I was walking around like everything was totally cool until about 10 hours later," Hannah recalled. While visiting her baby in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) that morning, she began experiencing severe cramps.
A trip to the bathroom revealed concerningly large blood clots, prompting her to alert medical staff as per hospital warnings about clots larger than an egg. After a nurse's examination, Hannah returned to the NICU where she was holding her baby when the worst pain of her life struck.
"Worse than labour pains," she described. "I told my husband I was like can you please grab this baby I think something's wrong."
Rapid Medical Emergency
As she stood up, Hannah felt a sudden gush of blood and clots, requiring a towel and immediate wheelchair transport back to the maternity ward. An ultrasound suggested retained placenta in her uterus, necessitating removal procedures.
Despite two attempts to address the issue, Hannah continued experiencing severe pain. Shortly after, she began bleeding again and alerted nurses that something felt "really off." What followed was a medical emergency involving approximately twenty staff members rushing into her room.
"Things started to go blurry," Hannah remembered. "There's pandemonium going on in my room. I hear my doctor say we need to prep the OR and I was like 'they're gonna take my uterus' and this is when I died."
The Near-Death Experience
Hannah describes an out-of-body experience: "I couldn't see myself, but I saw the room like from above, and it was really crazy, and then the white light. This was insane it's like a train came straight at me and like blasted me up into oblivion."
She experienced overwhelming peace mixed with sadness at the realisation she might never see her children again. "That was really devastating to me, but it was almost just like a shoulder shrug because I was just like 'well there's nothing I can do about it'," she explained.
After approximately one minute of clinical death, Hannah felt violently returned to consciousness: "It felt like god like power punched me back into earth and I like come to and I throw up this like cat vomit like substance."
Aftermath and Recovery
Waking confused and holding the anaesthesiologist's hand thinking it was her husband's, Hannah received reassurance that she would be okay. She required multiple blood transfusions during her recovery, though medical staff couldn't fully explain what had occurred.
The traumatic experience has left Hannah with mixed emotions about expanding her family further. While she would love to have a third child, the fear of potentially dying during another childbirth now looms large in her decision-making.
This harrowing account highlights the serious risks that can accompany childbirth even in modern medical settings, and the lasting psychological impact such near-death experiences can have on new mothers.
