After a couple of days I remembered I had a baby and wanted him to come to the stroke ward

Having a baby is usually a joyful experience for women and their families, but giving birth is not without risks.

A small number of new mums are among the 100,000 people who suffer strokes in the UK each year, caused by a clot or bleeding on the brain.

Stevi Marshall, 31, from Covingham, who works for the Environment Agency as an environmental assistant, and 40-year-old Jo Wallace, who lives in the centre of Swindon and works as a finance assistant for timber windows and doors manufacturer PWG Trading Ltd, are gradually recovering their health after suffering strokes following the births of their babies Samuel, who is now six-and-a-half months, and Megan, nine months.

The women got to know each other during sessions for new mums at the stroke rehabilitation unit at Great Western Hospital, organised by stroke sister Jo Prior and her team.

At the beginning of April they took part in the Resolution Run in aid of the Stroke Association, held at Lydiard Park, and raised just over £1,000 between them. They’re keen to thank those who donated money and supported them and raise awareness of stroke in mums, and in younger people in general. Jo in particular found that doctors were quick to assume she had post-natal depression, or wrote off her symptoms as being something to do with a new mum.

Jo's story

My husband, Stuart, and I tried to have a child for 10 years. We went through IVF and, to be honest we had given up really and decided to use our savings to do up the house. Then, a week later, I found I was expecting.

I’d say I was reasonably fit and healthy. I was working and going to college up until a week before I had Megan and six weeks before giving birth I did the Race for Life in Swindon, although I walked rather than ran it.

My blood pressure was never an issue, it was usually relatively low, even during pregnancy. The midwives used to laugh because it was so low.

I had Megan as a planned caesarean and it went quite smoothly. They kept me in for a couple of days and then I went home.

It was probably a week after her arrival that I started suffering bad headaches but to begin with I put it down to being a new mum. After four days it got to the point when I became concerned that something wasn’t right and we contacted the out-of-hours service.

The doctor we spoke to was pretty condescending and wanted to know why I had left it so late that day to get in touch. My husband went to get some tablets for the pain and was told to bring me back in if I started to lose my vision. By the time he got back I had started to lose my vision, and I don’t remember much else to be honest. When I got to hospital my blood pressure was extremely high, which I now know is a big risk factor for a stroke.

I was in the stroke ward for two and a half weeks and was only conscious as to what was happening about a week into it. I was awake but couldn’t see very well because of the pressure on my optic nerve. I was told there had been two significant bleeds on the back of my brain. It was only a few days before I came home that it dawned on me that I had had a stroke, and more than a fortnight before I could remember my date of birth. It was quite strange being in the stroke ward because I was considerably younger than everybody in there. It was pretty surreal really.

The hospital told me it was not an unusual situation but that it wasn’t an everyday occurrence in new mums.

Megan was just 10 days old when I went into hospital and Stuart found it really tough, but he got through it. He’s been a real rock through all of this. We were advised that the bonding process was important and so Stuart would bring in Megan every day and we would do skin on skin and things like that. When I realised what had happened I tried to brush it off, but then I was taken down to the maternity ward to relearn how to bathe and feed Megan; they had to make sure I was competent enough. When I got back to the stroke ward I cried and cried because I realised how serious it was. I could have lost a lot of things.

The staff at the Great Western Hospital have been amazing, especially in the way they helped me to have bonding time with my daughter. They couldn’t tell me how I would be in the future but I’m slowly getting back to normal, although I don’t know how much better my brain is going to get. As a result of the stroke I have a communication difficulty called aphasia, which can be really frustrating as I forget words, or go to say something and something completely random comes out. For example, I wanted my husband to get me my handbag but ended up calling it ‘my carrot’. This usually occurs when I’m feeling tired, or stressed. I’ve also been diagnosed with epilepsy, so can’t drive at the moment. I’m back at work but it’s a very slow-phased return.

Thinking back on what’s happened, we’ve been through a lot to get to this point. Somebody once said to me, ‘do you think it wasn’t meant to be?’ but I don’t agree: we fought so much to have Megan and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Stevi’s story:

Samuel wasn’t a planned baby, although he was a lovely little surprise. I look at him now and I can’t imagine my life without him.

I had no issues with my blood pressure during my pregnancy and while I developed gestational diabetes, I managed it through diet.

Samuel was born naturally and afterwards I was wearing compression stockings and having injections every day. There was a funny vein in my leg that the doctors thought might be connected with deep vein thrombosis, but it turned out to be nothing.

All seemed to be going well but I started getting headaches within the first two weeks of being home. I remember lying on the sofa and not being able to move because I was in so much pain. During the second week I went to see my doctor and was prescribed some tablets for migraine, because he thought that was what it was suffering from. It got to the point at which my speech went funny: I was saying words but they didn’t make any sense. I was talking absolute gobbledegook and didn’t know who Samuel was.

My mum phoned the emergency line and the people there wanted my blood sugars tested. I was taken to the emergency centre and nurses checked my blood pressure, which was normal, and I saw a lovely doctor who said I had a urine infection, gave me something for it and sent me home, but phoned later to say that he was quite concerned about me and that I should return to hospital if I started being sick, the pain got worse or there was no improvement.

The following day the pain was worse and I was vomiting, so we went back to the emergency centre and from there I was sent to A&E, and from there things get a bit blurred.

My mum tells me we were there for hours, but it seemed like minutes. I remember sitting in the waiting room trying to read a notice: I could see words but couldn’t read them. They scanned my chest, because they thought I might have a chest infection, and then my head the following day.

After the head scan we were told I had had a stroke due to several clots in the veins in my head as well as bleeds on my brain and I was sent to the stroke ward.

The news didn’t really sink in and I remember my mum asking me if I understood what was said.

After mum explained everything to me again I burst into tears and told her I didn’t want to die, and that made her cry. The next thing I knew was that my brother walked in and I could see from his face how upset he was and just how serious things were.

Throughout all of this my mum Kim, brother Paul and family and friends have been amazing and I’m so thankful for the support they’ve given me, and for the hospital staff too. Paul was looking after Samuel during the day, it was quite funny because he would send me photos of them both, and mum would have him at night.

My memory was really bad for some time: people would come and see me and I didn’t recognise their names, even though I knew their faces. To begin with I couldn’t read or write, but after a few days things started to come back.

After a couple of days I remembered I had a baby and wanted him to come to the ward and the nurses managed to get a cot from the maternity ward for him.

Having him close by was good, although I had some concerns about bonding with him. He would cry and I would panic because it felt like I didn’t know how to soothe him. Mum would take him and he would calm down and that would upset me because I didn’t feel like his mum, but once I had accepted it was just a change for him we were able to have lots of cuddles and it was clear that we hadn’t lost our bond.

Being in the stroke unit was horrible in some ways but it also made me realise how lucky I was because it could have been a lot worse. Sometimes I feel a bit angry that this has happened to me, although at the same time I feel grateful because I feel it’s made me a better person and thankful that I have a beautiful little boy. I still feel that I’m not quite recovered but I feel like I’m getting there. More often than not I feel like me again.