Mum Had A Stroke Three Days Before Giving Birth

Caters

A mum gave birth to a healthy baby boy less than a week after a stroke left her paralysed.

Kate Weaver, 29, was shopping with her husband Tim, 36, when she suffered cramps. She sat down to rest but was unable to pull herself up again.

Kate, who is a nurse, immediately recognised the signs of a stroke and she just managed to get out the words: "We need to go to hospital. It's not the baby, I'm really ill."

She then lost her speech as well as her ability to move.

At hospital, doctors agonised about thrombolysing her – a process used to break down stroke-causing blood clots – which had never been performed on a pregnant woman there before.

But Kate and her family decided to go ahead to save her life, knowing there was a risk to her unborn baby.

But just three days later Toby was born at 6lbs 11oz after his mum had an epidural.

Two weeks after Toby was born, he and his mum were back home in Wem, Shropshire.

Kate, who had to learn how to walk again, said: "Toby's a little miracle. He's developing fine.

"I can't describe it how scary having a stroke and knowing that I was about to give birth was - I didn't think I was going to make it.

"I thought we would both die so when I heard Toby cry the release of knowing he was alive was incredible. I was very lucky knowing exactly what was happening to me so that we act quickly.

"But having so much knowledge made it so much worse because I knew the terminology and I knew what might happen."

Although Kate's speech returned within four hours of her stroke, she remained partially paralysed and had almost no movement in her left side when she left hospital.

She received pioneering treatment with electrical impulses at Physiofunction in Northampton to help her walk again after she was affected by dropfoot which left her unable to pick her foot off the floor.