Diana and Kate’s shared pregnancy struggle, 30 years apart,
It was news that was met with excited anticipation from not just the British public, but from around the world.
Princess Diana was pregnant with the future heir to the throne.
But at just 20 years old, she was already struggling with the pressures of royal life and, like her future daughter-in-law Kate Middleton, had terrible morning sickness throughout her pregnancy.
Andrew Morton wrote about this in his authorised biography, Diana: Her True Story, after the Princess of Wales took the extraordinary step of recording her innermost thoughts – on the condition that her involvement was kept secret.
Sensationally, it exposed the devastating truth about her imploding marriage to the future King Charles and misery within the Royal Family.
In October 1981, ten years before recording her tapes for Morton – Diana and Charles took a three-day visit to Wales when she had just found out she was pregnant.
In a transcript of one of the princess’s tapes, Morton wrote: ‘[I remember] feeling terribly sick, carrying this child, hadn’t told the world I was pregnant but looking grey and gaunt and still being sick.
‘Couldn’t sleep, didn’t eat, whole world was collapsing around me. Very very difficult pregnancy indeed.
‘And this family’s never had anybody who’s had morning sickness before, so every time at Balmoral, Sandringham or Windsor in my evening dress I had to go out I either fainted or was sick.
‘It was so embarrassing because I didn’t know anything because I hadn’t read my books, but I knew it was morning sickness because you just do.’
On November 5, 1981, Buckingham Palace announced that the Prince and Princess of Wales were expecting their first child and were ‘delighted by the news.’
The Palace said: ‘The Princess is in excellent health.
‘The Princess hopes to continue to undertake some public engagements but regrets any disappointment which may be caused by any curtailment in her planned program.’
But behind the scenes, Diana was struggling.
She said in the tape: ‘Almost every time I stood up I was sick. Suddenly, in the middle of a black dress and black-tie do, I would go out to be sick and come back again and they’d say: “Why didn’t she go off to bed?”
‘I felt like it was my duty to sit at the table, duty was all over the shop. I didn’t know which way to turn at all.’
In January 1982 – 12 weeks into the pregnancy – Diana fell down a staircase at Sandringham, suffering some bruising.
Diana later confessed that she had intentionally thrown herself down the stairs because she was feeling ‘so inadequate’.
She said in the tape: ‘When I was four months pregnant with William I threw myself downstairs, trying to get my husband’s attention, for him to listen to me.
‘I had told Charles I felt so desperate and I was crying my eyes out.
‘He said I was crying wolf. “I’m not going to listen,” he said.
‘”You’re always doing this to me. I’m going riding now.”
‘So I threw myself down the stairs. The Queen comes out, absolutely horrified, shaking – she was so frightened.
‘I knew I wasn’t going to lose the baby; quite bruised around the stomach.
‘When he came back, you know, it was just dismissal, total dismissal. He just carried on out of the door.’
Charles’s response was influenced by advice from his friends who felt Diana needed to ‘pull herself together’, Robert Lacey wrote in his book, Battle of Brothers.
However, as Prince William’s due date approached, Charles did spend more time with Diana and stayed by her side when their first son was born on June 21, 1982.
In doing so, he became the first male royal to be present at a birth.
In a letter to his godmother, Patricia Knatchbull, Charles said how he was ‘so thankful I was beside Diana’s bedside the whole time’.
However, his wife’s struggles with her mental health would continue. When William was just shy of his fourth birtdhay, Diana fainted during a trip to Canada.
She received some help from doctors but still struggled, and her marriage to Charles continued on a downward spiral.
They eventually separated in 1992, before divorcing in 1996.
Kate Middleton also suffered with morning sickness throughout all three of her pregnancies.
In September 2023 she spoke about having hyperemesis gravidarum (severe vomiting during pregnancy) with a another parent during a visit she made to a sensory development class in Kent.
Her first pregnancy was announced early, before she reached the typical 12-week point, after she was hospitalised with the condition.
Earlier, in 2021, the Princess of Wales launched a major awareness raising campaign to increase public understanding of the crucial importance of the first five years of a child’s life.
It is set to run for at least five years, and has been described by a Kensington Palace spokesman as her ‘life’s work’.
Kate spoke passionately about the campaign in an open letter published in the Mail on Sunday, in which she set out her plan for ‘Shaping Us’.
Reports produced by the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood revealed that the first five years of a child’s life shape their future wellbeing more than any other stage of development, with our brains growing faster at this time than any other.
The centre also hopes to ‘break the cycle’ for parents who experienced difficult childhoods themselves.
Palace aides said the idea for the project began even before Kate became a mother.
In the years between Diana and Kate’s struggles with morning sickness, attitudes have drastically changed.
While Diana’s experiences were largely dismissed or downplayed, Kate’s condition was taken more seriously, with increased medical support and public awareness.
Kate’s pregnancies brought more scrutiny to the issue of morning sickness, particularly hyperemesis gravidarum.
The media played a significant role in raising awareness, leading to more open discussions and a better understanding of the condition.
