Copyright hellomagazine
Shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho has opened up about the "extraordinarily scary" experience that left her "fighting for her life" after giving birth to her son, Rafael, earlier this year. Appearing on This Morning with hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard, Claire was joined by her partner Adam to share their story and raise awareness of maternal health. After delivering their son Rafael via C-section, Claire suffered serious complications that left her in a coma and battling for survival. Adam, who was in the birthing room with Claire, recalls the tense moment they realised the baby wasn't crying. "I was ready to try and get the shot that I'd seen friends have of the baby being lifted over the blue curtain and have this magical moment where he was brought to Claire's chest. And actually, the moment he came out, he was blue, he was limp and he got rushed off. The anaesthetist said, 'Don't worry, it'll only be a minute or so'. We were waiting for 15 very long minutes." While baby Rafa was taken to intensive care, he soon began to recover – but it was Claire who later became critically ill. "At first, I was throwing up, I was ballooning up and my vision was blurred. I could sense that my thinking was becoming unclear," she said. After a few days, Claire was diagnosed with a rare condition called acute fatty liver of pregnancy, which made her body shut down. "I was essentially going into multiple organ failure," Claire explained. "As the doctors were trying to work out what I had and what was wrong with me." Reflecting on the experience, Adam said: "It was extraordinarily scary spending my time running between the specialist unit that Rafa was on and the ICU where Claire was." Claire added: "It was quite a scary time. We didn't know what was going to happen and we made sure to, for example, that we were looking into getting an emergency marriage so Adam would have all the parental rights he might need. We looked into writing a will, we were making sure we were ready for whatever happened." Luckily, Claire started improving and stabilising – and was finally reunited with her son, who is now very healthy and happy. "He is gorgeous," gushed Claire. "He's ten months, he's got two teeth. He's got very sticky hands. He's actually just standing and wobbling a lot, but he's brilliant. I'm really pleased to say it's a very happy ending; we are all well."
