Any other HELLP Mommas here?

MrsKStone · May 2014

Just curious if anyone else has a preemie due to HELLP syndrome? I delivered 31 weeks 6 days emergency c section due to this. What was your story/experience? I found out I was suffering from HELLP when I started having insane sternum / lower back / right shoulder pain. They thought gallstone attacks.... A week after the pain started they put the pieces together (swollen organs, high BP, protein in urine, and blood levels abnormal) and diagnosed me with HELLP and I was rushed to a high risk hospital and my midwives transferred my care. I lasted 3 days in hospital under monitoring until I got another "attack" of pain (worse) and I was rushed in for an emergency c section. My son was born at 2lbs 11oz. Im feeling so much better now and my son, Grayson, is doing pretty well considering! He just needs to grow and hit those milestones in order to go home.

Nita14701 · May 2014

Yes- info is in siggy. Hope for a short and uneventful NICU stay for your little one.

KTZ17 · May 2014

Congratulations on the birth of your son! My DD just turned one and she was born last may at 31 weeks 3 days due to HELLP. The week before I had a regular visit and my BP was high, but it went down a bit when I would lie on my left side. My midwife sent me home and said to check it at home the next morning & if it was high to go to L&D. So I did and I was admitted even though I had no other symptoms. I had no protein in my urine, no epigastric pain, no headaches or visual issues. So the plan was bed rest as long as possible, at least 34 weeks, but about a week into my bed rest my liver enzymes became elevated so they delivered her. She was 3lbs 11 oz at birth and was in the NICU for exactly a month. CPAP for a week, bili lights for a few days, I think she started bottle feeding after 2 weeks and BFing after 3. She's doing awesome now. If you have any questions feel free to ask! I hope your NICU stay is short & uneventful!

LaurenS865 · May 2014

Yep! My DD was delivered at 28+6 due to HELLP. I had had a perfectly normal and healthy pregnancy until 28 weeks, when my BP spiked at my 28 week visit. 4 days later I went to the ER with chest pains. BP was sky high, protein in my urine, crazy liver enzymes...you know the drill. I got a mag drip and the steroid shots, and less than 48 hours later I had my little girl. She was 2lbs 3ozs at birth. She was actually released from the hospital TODAY (yay!!!) after 58 days in the NICU, and is perfectly healthy at a whopping 5lbs 7.5ozs. Congratulations on little Grayson! I hope your NICU stay is short and uneventful!

gault530 · May 2014

I had twins at 26+4 due to severe pre-e and HELLP. In the days leading up to the delivery, I wasn't feeling well in general and had extremely high BP. I went to the doctor because of my high BP, had a ton of protein in my urine and was sent straight to the hospital. Once I got there and labs were drawn I was diagnosed with HELLP. I was put on mag and got the steroid shot. They redrew the labs and I was worse so I was sent for an emergency c-section. I went to the doctor at 11:30 am and the twins were born that day at 9:00 pm. They were both 1 lb 13 oz.

I'm so happy to say they are completely healthy and do not have any significant issues due to their prematurity. The NICU is a really long road and it will change the person you are, but hopefully for the better!

ashleymarie512 · May 2014

Hello and congrats! I had DD at 29+6 due to HELLP. I had a lot of swelling most of my pregnancy and then the week she was born, I had the epigastric/upper shoulder pain, vomiting, etc. I called the dr and they said it was most likely indigestion and to take Zantac. Later that day I went into the dr's office due to decreased movement and they did a NST, which she passed, but they didn't check my bp or urine at all. Three days later I took my own bp and it was 200/150. I called the on call and went into the hospital, since it was a Saturday. They struggled getting a blood sample due to my swelling, but finally got some. While we were waiting for those results, they did an ultra sound and it showed stalled cord blood flow. The blood test came back and the dr said "we have to take her now". Less than an hour later, she was here in her 2lb 3oz glory! I had to stay on the mag for almost two days before I was finally able to see her. DH showed me pics and we face timed a little bit.

I'm curious about the chances of getting it with subsequent pregnancies. Has anyone had babies after their HELLP babies? Curious about experiences!

rslhmg · June 2014

Dd1 was born at 32wks due to hellp. I had some random swelling the friday before i delivered, considering I worked on my feet at the time my ob had me take off work, take ibuprophen and see if the swelling went away. It did so we didnt know anything was wrong until my gallbladder started acting up. I ended up in the er on that sunday night for abdominal pain, they did an ultasound and found my gallbladder full of stones, released me monday morning and had me follow up with my ob. My bp and urine were fine at my follow up that afternoon. I ended up back in the er that night and again on late tuesday, early weds. At some point between the initial er visit and the 3rd one my kidneys had started shutting down, i had no platlets, my bp had skyrocketed, and my urine was basically all protien. My ob transferred me to a high risk ob next to the childrens hospital after starting a mag drip and getting the first steroid shot. I delivered dd the next day. They gave it just enough time to give me the second round of steroids and attempt to get my platlets up. I was still at risk of bleeding out when they couldnt wait any longer.
@ashleymarie512‌ ‌, in my specific case they gave me a 50% chance of it happening again (from my understanding its typically 10-25%) I did, however deliver a healthy term baby (38w2d) on the 16th of this month. My ob had me on baby aspirin, I went into labor on my own, and I had no complications until delivery, her heart rate started going nuts so they had to speed things up with pitocin trying to avoid c-section (was able to deliver vaginally with pitocin speeding things along.) I did decide to have a tubal ligation though, since they said my odds of another hellp related preemie would never change. I would speak with your ob and a mfm about your specific case to find out your odds of it happening again.

Bluebird2318 · June 2014

I had HELLP with my first. Except for extreme swelling in my feet and ankles it was a normal pregnancy until 28 weeks. Sometime in the middle of week 28 I developed some mid-to-upper back pain that wouldn't go away. After a few days I had a feeling it just wasn't right and I went to the hospital in the middle of the night. I was diagnosed with severe pre-e and HELLP and DD was delivered the next morning via c-section.I was 29 weeks exactly. I was given 1/4 chance of it happening again by my OB.

I saw an MFM for my second pregnancy and she said that in general chances of it happening again are up to 40%, but with a daily low dose aspirin it could possibly be reduced to as low as 5% so that's what I did. I had a textbook pregnancy, perfect blood pressure the whole time, and delivered via VBAC at 40 weeks 2 days.

ashleymarie512 · June 2014

@rslhmg and @bluebird2318

Thank you for your replies regarding odds! Congratulations on your new little ones

I do plan to talk to the doctors before TTC again. We're IF and have frozen embryos left, so granted we don't conceive on our own, we'll go that route again. I definitely plan on changing offices, as I feel as if my OB kind of dropped the ball after not checking me after I complained of the issues that were quite clearly HELLP/pre-e symptoms...especially since I was in the freakin' office the same day I called with concerns! Anyway, I plan to find a high risk doctor and consult prior to getting pregnant.

Thanks guys!

megs2011 · June 2014

I had my twins at 34+4. Everything was fine till around 30 weeks. I started seeing spots in my vision. I was getting dizzy spells. Around 32 weeks I cut myself and it wouldn't stop bleeding. At 33 weeks I started getting intense pains in my upper back and sternum pains like the worst heartburn of my life. At 34 weeks my twins were 3 weeks behind in growth so I went in Sunday for a nst and the one nurse who had seen me earlier in the week noticed the horrible numbers. I was sent for a bpp, blood work and a urine sample. My BP was skyrocketing, liver enzymes were elevated, platelets were low and protein in my urine. They delivered them via section within the hour. They were 2.9 and 3.7 lbs, nicu for 30 days as feeders/growers.

Trillian46 · June 2014

My son was born at 32w 0 d. I'd been calling in with pains for a few days, but my doctor's nurse kept insisting that I was just constipated (despite my arguments to the contrary). By the time another on-call physician called me into the hospital, my platelet count was really low. I got one steroid shot and then delivered about 10 hours later (before the second shot). We were in the NICU for about 5 weeks. My son is 2 now and doing fantastic (although he still suffers from reflux and has a pretty low weight for his age... but he's on the growth curve).

I consulted with a high risk ob/gyn. She pegged me at a 15% chance of recurrence. I did some blood work to check for clotting disorders (and am heterzygous for MTHFR... not a huge hit). Nothing showed up on my autoimmune genetic panel... but since then I've learned that I do have slightly elevated ANH levels and am HLAB27 positive (possible markers of an autoimmune issue). In any event, I recommend doing blood work to check for autoimmune markers and clotting disorders, as they can be linked. It also flagged another possible issue with elevated heart rate for the baby in a future pregnancy. Recommendation was baby aspirin and 4000 mcg of folic acid/day if we do decide to have another baby.

daciadanae · July 2014

My DS was delivered at 29 weeks via emergency c-section due to HELLP. I had been feeling a little bit "off" and the docs just dismissed it as general pregnancy symptoms. One night I ate dinner and immediately started vomiting. After the 3rd time I threw up, my husband rushed me to the hospital afraid I was becoming dehydrated. Within 2 hours of checking in, I was diagnosed with HELLP and my son was delivered. I was very sudden and very scary. We ended up with a 115 day NICU stay.

I'm currently 10 weeks pregnant with baby#2. I'm definitely more nervous this time, but I have a much better OB and I'm working with a MF doc. They're running extra blood work to check for abnormalities, so far so good! I'm just going to be sure to see a doc immediately when I feel something isn't right instead of blowing off any weird symptoms

cnlmdl723 · July 2014

I had DD at 36w5d, was induced due to IUGR and her failure of the BPP, plus spilling protein in my urine. It wasn't until 9 hours of labor that my bloodwork came back HELLP syndrome, and she was delivered via C-section 1 hour later. 4lbs3oz due to the IUGR, spent one week in the NICU. I'm definitely nervous to try again, since it cant be prevented from happening again

rednelson · July 2014

I delivered at 29+6 due to pre-e/HELLP. Had a totally uneventful pregnancy aside from never actually looking pregnant. Started having abdominal pain and a nose bleed that took hours to finally stop. I took my BP at home and it was 180-190's/80-100's. My DH and I took it a few times, I decided to shower to try to vasdilate myself but after calling my friend who's an L&D RN went to the ER where my bp was >200/100. My protein was off the dipstick and LO was having decels. They drew blood, started me on mag, gave me one steroid shot and put me in an ambulance. Once I arrived at the next hospital they repeated labs since my platelets had been low at my local hospital. In that 1.5 hours my platelets had dropped another 40k, so low I couldn't get an epidural. I was taken straight back and was put under general anesthesia. My son was born less that 4 hours after my initial arrival to the ER weighing in at 2 lbs 5 ounces. Now he's the most awesome 2.5 (almost 3!) year old I know. We've done a pre-conception visit with the MFM and she was very optimistic and gave me a fairly low recurrence rate. I'm shocked that some docs say 40% chance! In my research I've never come across any medical articles/studies that show that high of chance given that subsequent pregnancies are with same father. My MFM recommended low dose ASA and high folic acid. You can also look at the WHO guidelines for recommendations for pregnancy after HELLP.

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