Gold Coast mum Jessica Walker recounts harrowing birth story for birth trauma awareness week

A Helensvale mother has bared all on her harrowing birth story, and recalls the moment she thought she was on the brink of death when nearly three quarters of her body’s blood poured out of her. HER TALE

JESSICA Walker is on an operating table for her second emergency surgery and thinks she is about to die.

She’s lost 3.6 litres – or seven-and-a-half pints – of blood. The human body holds roughly 5 litres.

Her baby daughter Shiloh, born just hours before, is nowhere in sight. All Jess wants to do is hold her.

Helensvale mother Jessica Walker at home with her daughter Shiloh, 2. Jessica is sharing her story for Birth Trauma Awareness Week (July 17-24). Picture: Glenn Hampson

Doctors and nurses fill the room, and the “worried looks on their faces” tell Jess something is wrong.

This, Jess says, is what many mothers go through when giving birth, but “no one tells you about it”.

She had what was classified a life-threatening postpartum hemorrhage, and luckily, doctors managed to save her. She received five blood transfusions.

The Helensvale mother may have rebounded physically, but the long-lasting mental trauma remains today.

Shiloh is two-years-old and Jess says anxiety “completely takes over” and she can’t be away from her for too long.

She tells the Bulletin tearfully that she can no longer return to a full-time job as a result of the traumatic birth, and went from “a high-flying corporate job working 50 hours a week” to a casual role.

But she wants Australian mothers out there to know they are not alone.

This Birth Trauma Awareness Week (July 17-24), Jess will share her story with millions of mums who have faced similar struggles.

Jess says talking to other mothers about their own birthing experiences has helped her with her own trauma. Picture: Glenn Hampson

“We need to keep the conversation and awareness alive,” she said.

“The after-birth trauma really impacted me. I don’t think I remember anything about the first year of my daughter’s life.

“For those early weeks and months that are supposed to be crucial bonding time with my baby. All I can remember is the bad.”

Jess says as she was being wheeled to emergency, blood pouring from her, a doctor had to sit on her uterus to keep it from contracting.

“Everyone was screaming category 1 and when they told me I needed surgery again because the bleeding hadn’t stopped, I 100 per cent thought I was going to die.

“I cried to my doctor and said ‘please don’t let me die’. She promised me that I wouldn’t.”

Jess says her wife Katie, 37, was nearly kicked out of the hospital room because staff assumed it was her sister.

“I’m still really angry about how some of the Gold Coast University Hospital staff treated us during the ordeal.”

Despite receiving years of therapy, she said having other women to talk to had helped in her healing.

She found a Facebook group in which women shared their birthing stories and decided to share hers.

“A lot of women on there share their experiences – the good, the bad and the ugly.

“It’s not about who has had a worse birth. It’s what we, as women, have gone through. I’m just lucky that I was able to survive. My daughter is everything to me, you could not find a happier kid.

On Sunday, Jess will take part in the Australasian Birth Trauma Association’s (ABTA) Walk N Support fundraising event at the Broadwater Parklands at 11am for the awareness week. For details and to register, email [e-mail]