Sam Thompson supports sister Louise as they take to parliament to discuss her harrowing birth trauma ordeal

Daily Mail​

16-07-2025

Sam Thompson supported his sister Louise as they took to Parliament to discuss her harrowing birth trauma ordeal on Wednesday.
Louise, 35, nearly died when she welcomed her son Leo-Hunter in 2021 after a emergency caesarean in which she lost '12 and a half litres of blood.'
She went on to suffer with PTSD and post-natal anxiety due to her near-death experience and has since then been diagnosed with Lupus, Asherman's syndrome, suffered a second Hemorrhage, and has also had a stoma bag fitted.
The former Made In Chelsea stars spoke with Birth Trauma APPG, who raises awareness of the experiences of parents who have experienced physical and psychological harm from childbirth.
While Louise discussed her emotional birth trauma, Sam also shared how it impacts surrounding family members.
Following the meeting, the pair captured the moment in a picture alongside Theo Clarke, the founder of the Global Birth Trauma Alliance and former Chair of the UK's Birth Trauma Inquiry.
In April, Louise revealed she suffered a devastating miscarriage last year in a heartbreaking post.
Louise also opened up about the miscarriage in her new book Lucky: Learning to live again, as well as her Daily Mail column.
Louise shared a photo of a positive pregnancy test, and wrote: 'Tw: lots of stuff. This is not now, this was last January. The night before I got on a flight. As if things needed to get more complicated.
'I only told a handful of people, but I wrote a bit about it in the book and now that it is out there in the big bad world I thought it was easier to share on here than to have anyone question it behind my back.
'I often find it easier to write this sort of stuff down than to speak about it out loud. And hopefully this will help me process it. Sharing can feel quite liberating.
'So much has happened in the past 3 years as we all know and v v quickly. It feels like such a dense time in my life.
'As my life coach often says I've signed up to the "speedy learning course". Riding in the fast lane. My time here on this planet has been anything but boring.'
Reflecting on the last tough few years, she continued: 'Sometimes (actually, all the time) I stop myself from having the time or the space to think about all the hard things that my body has been through. I love working with my coach because she teaches me to look forward. We talk about fun projects, work, relationships and all the menial bits and bobs that make up this rollercoaster we call life too.
'I haven't worked with my psychotherapist for well over a year because I thought I was done with all of that.
'That means I haven't been forced to look back. But then I had to have more surgery 6 months ago and actually over the last week being back in the hospital to discuss potential plans for future surgeries and stuff has brought everything rushing back.
'It's landed on me like a tonne of bricks. I've noticed some weird avoidance behaviours, some silly distractions seeping in, and also have found it really hard to focus on things properly.
'I've felt a little confused between the then and now and I've also had some rather bizarre memories pop in and I've cried a little bit most days which feels alien (even though I used to be called tears Thompson) because I've been so happy.
'I'll be honest I think there is a need for more processing. I haven't spoken to a therapist since the stoma surgery.
'I think it might be time to try some dreaded EMDR. Please can someone give me confidence that it won't be dreaded?!?'
She continued: 'I talk a wee bit about it in the extra chapter of my book, but it's crazy to think that Leo could have had a sibling born last September. I doubt that it was ever going to work. Probably a mere chemical pregnancy.
'Whatever it was the change in hormones or blood flow to that area caused the most insane amount of bleeding from my bum in the weeks that followed and ended up having my stoma surgery as a result. So capiche. That was the end of that dream.
She concluded by saying: 'My fertility and our fertility journey is something I'm only just starting to wrap my head around 3 1/2 years after the birth of my beautiful son'
'Was it a dream though? Not something that was planned, in fact a complete miracle given the circumstances and I'll let you work that one out, although there are many circumstances that make this one very unusual, including the fact it's practically a mary and joseph moment.
'But I knew something was different to test because I felt a very unusual sense of tiredness that I only got when being pregnant last time and I felt very sick too.
'These are not symptoms I've experienced aside from my last pregnancy.'
She concluded by saying: 'My fertility and our fertility journey is something I'm only just starting to wrap my head around 3 1/2 years after the birth of my beautiful son.
'There is a lot I haven't come to terms with, and I haven't wanted to until now. I remember my therapist asking me about it a few years ago and she asked whether I was sad about my situation and I just brushed it off. It was all way to soon to start thinking about the idea of more anything when I had so much fixing to do.
'But I actually remembered to mention it in a medical appointment last week and it kind of brought about this flood of emotions and it felt quite necessary and quite good. I need to get it out now.'
What causes a miscarriage?
It is highly unlikely that you will ever know the actual cause of a one-off miscarriage, but most are due to the following problems:
• ABNORMAL FETUS
The most common cause of miscarriages in the first couple of months is a one-off abnormal development in the fetus, often due to chromosome anomalies. 'It's not as though the baby is fine one minute and suddenly dies the next,' says Professor James Walker, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Leeds.
'These pregnancies fail from the outset and were never destined to succeed.' Most miscarriages like this happen by eight weeks, although bleeding may not start until three or four weeks later, which is worth remembering in subsequent pregnancies. 'If a scan at eight weeks shows a healthy heart beat, you have a 95 per cent chance of a successful pregnancy,' says Professor Walker.
• HORMONAL FACTORS
A hormonal blip could cause a sporadic miscarriage and never be a problem again. However, a small number of women who have long cycles and irregular periods may suffer recurrent miscarriages because the lining of the uterus is too thin, making implantation difficult.
Unfortunately, hormone treatment is not terribly successful.
'There used to be a trend for progesterone treatment, but trials show this really doesn't work,' warns Professor Walker. 'There is some evidence that injections of HCG (human chorionic gonadotrophin, a hormone released in early pregnancy) can help, but it's not the answer for everyone.' The treatment must be started as soon as the pregnancy is confirmed, at around four or five weeks.
• AGE
For women over 40, one in four women who become pregnant will miscarry. [One in four women of all ages miscarry, but these figures include women who don't know that they are pregnant. Of women who do know that they're pregnant, the figure is one in six. Once you're over 40, and know that you're pregnant, the figure rises to one in four]
• AUTO-IMMUNE BLOOD DISORDERS
Around 20 per cent of recurrent miscarriers suffer from lupus or a similar auto-immune disorder that causes blood clots to form in the developing placenta.
A simple blood test, which may need to be repeated several times, can reveal whether or not this is the problem.'One negative test does not mean that a women is okay,' warns Mr Roy Farquharson, consultant gynaecologist who runs an early pregnancy unit at the Liverpool Women's Hospital.
Often pregnancy can be a trigger for these disorders, so a test should be done as soon as possible,' he adds.But it can easily be treated with low dose aspirin or heparin injections, which help to thin the blood and prevent blood clots forming - a recent trial also showed that women do equally well on either. ''We have a 70 per cent live birth rate in women treated for these disorders,' says Dr Farquharson, 'which is excellent.'
• OTHER CAUSES
While uterine abnormalities, such as fibroids, can cause a miscarriage, many women have no problems carrying a pregnancy to term. An incompetent cervix can also cause miscarriage at around 20 weeks.
While this can be treated by a special stitch in the cervix, trials suggest it is not particularly successful, although it may delay labour by a few weeks.Gene and chromosomal abnormalities, which can be detected by blood tests, may also cause recurrent miscarriages in a small number of couples.
A procedure known as preimplantation genetic diagnosis can help. After in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), a single cell is taken from the developing embryo and tested for the gene defect. Only healthy embryos are then replaced in the womb.
It is an expensive and stressful procedure - and pregnancy rates tend to be quite low - but for some this is preferable to repeated miscarriages or a genetically abnormal baby.