Feeling your baby kick and wriggle inside of you is one of the joys of expectant motherhood. But when mum-to-be Ayla Heller hadn’t felt her baby kick all day, the reason was an odd one: a calcified placenta. Today, mum and baby are happy and healthy, but Heller wants to share her story to raise awareness.
Heller was 38 weeks pregnant when she noticed her unborn baby girl, Maddy, wasn’t kicking like she normally did. Thinking Maddy was having a less active day, Heller went about her daily routine. According to Heller, Maddy switched positions around midday, but for the rest of the day, she remained pretty still. When Heller’s partner, Dalton, asked whether Maddy had been kicking, Heller realised her baby definitely wasn’t moving as much as she should have been.
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Heller then started to feel queasy. Mum and Dad confirmed that little Maddy’s heart was beating with their at-home Doppler machine, but the baby girl just wouldn’t move. Heller Googled her symptoms but didn’t find anything useful. Half of the internet told her that babies stop kicking when they run out of room, while the other half told her to hightail it to the hospital. Even more unsure, Heller called her mum who insisted that Heller at least call the midwife.
Her midwife told her to go to the labour centre where they immediately hooked her up to machines. After some time, the labour centre staff told Heller that her midwife was on the way, and that’s when Heller’s mum, who knew that was a bad sign, called the rest of the family to tell them to come down.
The midwife told Heller that her placenta had aged prematurely and calcified, reducing Maddy’s air and food flow. As a result, Maddy had stopped moving to conserve her energy. In the end, Maddy was fine. She needed to be hooked up to a glucose IV drip, but today mum and baby are healthy. The most amazing part is that Maddy is a great-great granddaughter!
After experiencing a near-tragedy, this new mum wants to urge other pregnant women to seek medical advice immediately if something doesn’t feel right.
Little Maddy was born safe and sound because her mum followed her intuition.
However, had Heller not listened to her instincts, Maddy wouldn’t be here, the doctors said. Talk about a miracle baby.
“So the point in me sharing this is to let anyone else know that things like this DO happen. You know your body and what’s normal for your baby,” Heller wrote on Facebook. “IF YOU HAVE DOUBTS, GO IN. GO IN. GO IN. GO IN!!! Always be safe rather than sorry. Because I almost didn’t. I almost waited till morning to see if anything changed. And had I done that, I wouldn’t have my love.”
This story originally featured on Woman’s World.
