A mother was saved from dying from sepsis during childbirth after her partner noticed that something was wrong when they locked lips.
Kerri-Louise Gilchrist gave birth to her daughter Layla, now 11 months, on August 3 last year, under terrifying and life-threatening circumstances.
The 33-year-old was induced after her boyfriend, Hugh Marshall, 35, noticed her cold temperature and blue lips while kissing her.
Sensing that something was gravely wrong, he immediately alerted doctors to the signs of sepsis and Ms Gilchrist was given an IV drip of antibiotics.
Layla was cut out through an episiotomy and eventually delivered successfully with a ventouse.
But in the process, Ms Gilchrist lost 2885ml, more than five pints, of blood. Having sat with her feet in stilts for three hours as she waited for doctors to remove her placenta, she ultimately required two blood transfusions to save her life.
Ms Gilchrist, a carer from Great Malvern, Worcestershire, said that her partner instinctively ‘knew there was something wrong’ after the pair locked lips.
The mother-of-two, who described having ‘such an easy’ birth with her eight-year-old son Teddy, said that Mr Marshall had not given her a ‘proper kiss’, but instead a deliberately disguised ‘temperature check’.
Recalling the terrifying ordeal, she said: ‘The nurses didn’t notice anything until my partner said to them, you’re not actually looking at your patient, her palms and lips are blue – that’s a sign of sepsis.
‘I’d been like that for a couple of hours at that point. Within two minutes of him saying that, I had 11 people in the room.
‘You have somebody that’s going to stand your ground for you. I was in no fit state to argue for myself, I couldn’t care for myself. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Hugh.’
Sepsis, a life-threatening condition caused by the body’s extreme response to infection, results in up to 48,000 deaths in the UK each year, according to the UK Sepsis Trust.
A leading cause of death in the UK, its main symptoms include a fever, rapid heart rate and breathing, feelings of confusion and difficulty breathing.
Ms Gilchrist said she first noticed her waters breaking on July 28, 2024 when she was only 36 weeks and five days into pregnancy.
But despite ringing Worcestershire Royal Hospital with her concerns, she was told twice over three days that she’d ‘probably just weed’.
After calling the hospital for a third time on August 1, having began to experience reduced mobility, she was eventually admitted.
Ms Gilchrist said: ‘They did the swab, came back and said, your waters are going. I’d been telling them that since Monday.
‘I was induced at 7am on Friday August 2 morning for what ended up being a 36-hour labour until 11pm on Saturday night.
‘I was pumped with all sorts because I couldn’t stand the pain, so I had an epidural. I’d give birth to my son again every day, it was so easy, but with Layla it was so, so painful.’
Adding that medical professionals ‘didn’t pay any attention to me’ and that she only survived due to her partner, a technology professional, noticing the signs, Ms Gilchrist recalled: ‘They started the IV drip of antibiotics at 8pm on Friday.
‘My daughter was still inside me and they said they wouldn’t give me a caesarean because there was somebody else waiting.
‘The IV really hurt and I said that to them, it really hurts, it shouldn’t hurt. They didn’t pay any attention to me. The state of my arm, the vein exploded and caused a blood clot, and it caused tendon damage to two fingers.’
Ms Gilchrist was eventually given an episiotomy when Layla started to go into stress.
She said: ‘After they pulled Layla out, they left me in the stilts for three hours because they hadn’t got my placenta. They left me bleeding out.
‘They weren’t measuring the blood I was losing and told me it was normal.’
Describing her partner as ‘the sweetest man ever’, Ms Gilchrist said that the doctors eventually realised that ‘they were killing me’,
Having lost five pints of blood and requiring two blood transfusions, she then spent four nights in hospital recovering.
Later suffering with arm pain due to the blood clot damage, she was unable to hold her daughter ‘for a couple of months’ and also could not breastfeed due to the trauma blocking her milk supply.
Adding that an anesthetist said Ms Gilchrist had been ‘pounding on heaven’s door’, the mother-of-two said medical professionals were ‘surprised I’m alive’.
She added: ‘Doctors put it down as a pre-terminal event, which is the stage before death.
‘I’m a stubborn bugger. At some point in there they said, how are you awake? Let alone talking to us right now. I said, I will shut my eyes when I know that I’m going to live. Until that point, I’m not going to shut my eyes.
‘There was a point where I don’t know if I died, but through the door I saw my mum who’d passed in April 2024. Staying awake was sheer willpower. Whenever I closed my eyes I saw my eight-year-old son, Teddy, and I’d force myself to open my eyes.’
Lalya, who spent two additional days in hospital with an IV drip in case the sepsis had passed to her, is now doing ‘really well’, with Ms Gilchrist describing her as ‘totally brilliant’ and ‘so funny’.
But she said that her life-threatening ordeal served as a terrifying reminder that birth can often come with its challenges, adding that ‘sometimes it’s life or death’.
Issuing a stark warning for others to ‘trust your gut’, Ms Gilchrist added: ‘I know my body and I knew something was wrong.’
‘Layla’s fine, she’s good – the one blessing in this. She had to stay in hospital for two days with an IV drip just in case sepsis had passed to her. But she’s great. Developmentally, she’s doing well. She’s totally brilliant, so funny.
Justine Jeffery, Director of Midwifery for Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, said the trust were ‘sorry if Ms Gilchrist is unhappy with the care she received from us.’
She added: ‘We are committed to providing the highest quality care for all the families we look after.
‘Ms Gilchrist was closely monitored by our team. It became clear that she would need to have her placenta safely removed under anaesthetic and in sterile conditions and she was transferred to an operating theatre as soon as one was available.
‘Her blood loss was also closely monitored and she received a blood transfusion while in theatre and another one subsequently. She remained well and stable following this and was subsequently transferred to our postnatal ward before going home the following day.
‘One of our senior midwives talked to Ms Gilchrist about the concerns she had around aspects of her care following the birth of her baby, and we would welcome the opportunity to meet with her again if there are any new or unresolved issues she wants to talk through with us.’
