A Lancashire woman is highlighting birth trauma after she and her baby went through near-death and emergency situations before, during and after his birth.

Laura-Beth Thompson, a mum and a Haslingden councillor, nearly died during the birth of her son, Theodore. Her baby then became critically ill twice before he was 10 weeks old.

The mum endured nightmares and terrifying memory flashbacks due to a little known condition - birth trauma.

She found a small charity, the Birth Trauma Association, which she says saved her in many ways.

Laura-Beth, from Shawforth, is an ex-Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar student who studied law at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Training at Woodcocks Haworth & Nuttall, she now works in planning enforcement for Rochdale Council.

She was elected to Rossendale Council in 2021 as Conservative councillor for Haslingden's Greenfield ward and is a member of Haslingden with Edenfield Community Partnership.

She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "I had a difficult pregnancy because I found out I was pregnant while undergoing investigations for a growth on my brain.

"Then there were concerns for the baby’s health as I was a high-risk pregnancy. Then I was diagnosed with heart valve disease at 30 weeks.

“I had missed pre-eclampsia. Then I was quite seriously ill with nausea and visual disturbances. I was admitted to hospital.

“The medics decided to induce labour, due to the pre-eclampsia symptoms. The induction took two days. Then my labour didn’t progress enough and I had to be taken into surgery. There, my epidural failed.”

The challenges kept coming, one after another.

Laura-Beth added: “Theodore did not make any noise so there were concerns about his breathing.

“At the same time, I started haemorrhaging and was still struggling with the high spinal. I felt I couldn’t breathe, was starting to lose consciousness with the blood loss and was uncertain if Theodore was alive and okay.

“Thankfully, we were both patched-up and came home a couple of days later. But I was still in shock and trying to process what had happened.”

His five-day check-up though revealed concerns about his skin tone and the risk of jaundice, resulting in a trip to Burnley General Hospital and more alarming news.

Laura-Beth said: "He would need blood transfusions within the hour to save him. Thankfully, when we arrived he was put under UV lamps immediately.

"His levels started to drop after an hour so he did not need to be transferred to a neo-natal intensive care unit. After five days in hospital we were able to come home.

"But I was then incredibly anxious about Theodore’s health and his feeding difficulties.”

Weeks later, after his immunisations, he would not wake from a nap and was "incredibly grey and floppy", prompting a dash to the Royal Blackburn Hospital.

Laura-Beth said: "On the journey, Theodore was going about 10 seconds at a time without taking a breath. While in the queue at A&E, his breathing was becoming slower and more sporadic.

"He was only breathing when I was rubbing his chest and stomach. He was immediately taken through to be seen."

Doctors found Theodore had contracted Covid before his jabs, resulting in a form of sepsis which needed treatment.

His return home at nine weeks old, still 'very poorly', was followed by daily physio and weekly hospital appointments.

Further hospitals admissions came with bronchiolitis and chest infections in his first six months but Laura-Beth and partner Andrew Walker remain thankful to consultant Dr Helen Coutts, for her support.

The stress took a toll on Laura-Beth, who said: "Once Theodore came home from hospital a second time, I found it incredibly difficult to relax, eat or sleep without worrying about his health and if he would stop breathing in my arms again?

“Around the time of the later hospital trips,  the daily physio and all the other developments and activity,  I started having flashbacks of him being unresponsive and of him being checked-over when he was born. I then had nightmares and up to six or seven flashbacks a day.

“My health visitor suggested that I make a referral to Mindsmatter because it sounded like I was suffering trauma from the birth and the two hospital admissions afterwards.

“I hadn’t heard of birth trauma at that point. I felt very uncertain as to whether I was experiencing it because I was coping fine, attending council meetings and hospital appointments and celebrating the birth with family and friends. Most people didn’t even know what we’d been through only that we’d had a ‘bad birth’.

“However despite having a now-thriving baby and a supportive network, I couldn’t stop reliving the experiences. The more I tried to ignore it, the worse it seemed to get.

She has undergone therapy after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and the frequency of the flashbacks is only once or twice a month now.

Laura-Beth said: "One of the things I struggled with the most was the overwhelmingly isolation and loneliness of my experience.  I didn’t know anyone else that had experienced anything like it – either with the birth or Theodore’s hospital admissions afterwards.

“When I found the Birth Trauma Association and its support group, there was a sense of relief that I wasn’t alone in my feelings. That I wasn’t losing my mind and that there were other people that understood what I’d been through.

“That’s the reason I want to raise awareness of birth trauma and the association. The work they do is lifesaving.

“Before my experiences, I didn’t know birth trauma existed. I didn’t know you could get post-traumatic stress disorder from something other than war, which is hugely inaccurate.

"But I wasn’t aware of that. This lack of knowledge made the flashbacks even more terrifying because I didn’t understand what was happening or why I was reliving the sensation of nearly dying or Theodore not breathing many times a day."

She hopes sharing her story will raise awareness of post-natal mental health conditions and help other traumatised mothers.

Today Laura-Beth and young Theodore are doing much better. He is now a happy, friendly brave little boy who loves spending time with family and friends, playing in his toy kitchen and watching Paddington Bear.

On July 15, Laura-Beth will abseil down Peel Tower, near Ramsbottom, supported by family and political friends like Cllr David Foxcroft, Luis McBriar from Bury and Bury North MP James Daly.

Laura-Beth added: “After all the help I received from the Birth Trauma Association, I wanted to give something back. I decided to face my biggest fear of heights and organise the sponsored abseil. There are still spaces available for other people to abseil or to donate on-line.”

To donate to the Peel Tower fund-raising abseil, see Laura-Beth Thompson’s page on the Just Giving website.

* For information on the Birth Trauma Association, visit www.birthtraumaassociation.org.uk