Kayla Itsines reveals secret health scare during second pregnancy

Fitness queen Kayla Itsines has shared the private health scare she endured during her second pregnancy.

Fitness queen Kayla Itsines has shared the private health scare she endured during her second pregnancy.

In an interview with Bustle this week, the 32-year-old revealed that 20 weeks into her pregnancy with her son Jax — who she and fiance Jae Woodroffe welcomed in January — doctors found a mass of fluid in her brain.

Itsines didn’t mention it on social media, she said, because she didn’t want to cause “massive drama online” — because everything’s fine.

At the time, however, doctors told her they wouldn’t know if everything would be OK for eight or nine weeks. Itsines was urged by a nurse not to Google the condition, because it would only panic her — leaving her and Woodroffe in limbo for two months.

“At one point, she called a psychic she knew who told her the baby was fine, and [that] it was a boy,” the Bustle article said.

“She’s not a woo-woo sort of person, but she would take whatever hope she could get. Eight weeks later, the scan came back, and everything was OK. The baby was fine, and it was a boy.”

Kayla Itsines has shared the private health scare she endured during her second pregnancy. Picture: Instagram

She and fiance Jae Woodroffe welcomed their son Jax Stokes Woodroffe in January. Picture: Instagram

“So I’ve gone through all of that sort of stuff, but … yeah,” Itsines told the outlet.

“I just want women to feel confident and strong and beautiful, and to not say that they can’t do something when they clearly can. Like, it’s a box jump. Just do it.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Itsines — arguably Australia’s most famous and successful personal trainer — said that she doesn’t “want people to compare themselves to me”.

“I grew up in a bubble, and I still am in a bubble. No one has their whole family [living] on the same street [like I do]. Like, are you joking? I still have my grandparents. I’ve never lost anyone. I don’t actually know what pain is.”

Given the above experience, however — and as Itsines’ assistant pointed out in the story, telling her, “You have felt hurt. You have felt things” — that’s not entirely true.

‘I grew up in a bubble, and I still am in a bubble.’ Picture: Instagram

Another example — her split from former fiance and business partner Tobi Pearce in 2020, a year after the couple had daughter Arna.

Itsines spoke candidly for the first time about the end of the relationship in a wide-ranging chat with The Australian Financial Review in June, reflecting she has “no idea” how she and Pearce became a couple at all.

While he was “money-driven, business-minded”, Itsines described herself as “creative” and “there for people” when it came to their fitness program, the Bikini Body Guide, and health and fitness app, SWEAT.

“We are the polar opposites of one another. I look back and I think, ‘I have no idea how that all happened,’” she told The AFR.

“I couldn’t have done it without him and he couldn’t have done it without me, but … I still have no idea how it all happened.”

Itsines with former business partner and fiance Tobi Pearce. Picture: Instagram

Itsines is now engaged to Woodroffe, who she was first linked to in September 2021. Picture: Instagram

She added that “nothing about my previous relationship was easy”.

“I never let it show. It’s not who I am. I am known as a friend, someone who is positive and upbeat …[But] it was always hard. It was always a battle,” Itsines said.

“I really don’t think, stepping back and looking at my years with Tobi, that we were anything alike. I’m a fixer. I want to make [sure] your day is the best day possible. I want to make sure if you are in my house, you feel warm and comfortable and loved. That’s me.

“Tobi came to me with no family, no sense of that. I thought, ‘I can fix you’. He told me, ‘We’re dating. Now we’re starting a business. Now we’re doing this.’”

Itsines is now engaged to Woodroffe, who she was first linked to in September 2021.