Mum’s instincts about her baby’s kicks saved daughter’s life

Always trust your gut.

That's the message that new mum Ayla Heller wants to get across in her latest Facebook post about the birth of her daughter, Maddy. One morning close to her due date, Ayla said that she noticed that her baby wasn't moving or kicking as often in the womb. She initially cast this aside as normal, as she remembered hearing that sometimes babies don't move around as often towards the end of pregnancies. The mum-to-be tried everything to get her daughter to move - drinking orange juice, taking a bath, poking her belly - but nothing was working. She eventually decided that she better phone the hospital, because despite what half of the internet was telling her, she had a feeling that something was wrong. And she was right.

"Upon arriving I was hooked up to monitors so they could track babies movement. "Upon my midwife arrival, she wasted no time to inform me that things were not looking the way they wanted and I was most likely going to have an emergency cesarian that night. "I was shaking uncontrollably but was kind of in too much shock to really have emotions about it."

Ayla and her husband Dalton were told that there was a high chance of life-threatening problems arising with the birth of her daughter. Once she was born via C-section, baby Maddy required oxygen as she couldn't breathe properly. Ayla was then told what had happened.

"I was informed that my placenta had aged prematurely, was calcified, and had basically given up. (I was also told they don't know why this happens and there's nothing I could've done to prevent it).

"This had caused Maddy to not be receiving as much oxygen or food as she needed. This was causing her to try to preserve her energy, which is why she had stopped moving.

"This also caused her to have low blood sugar upon arrival so she needed to be hooked up to a glucose drip IV her first few days.

"My mother asked what would have happened had I not gone in when I did. "She wouldn't be here" was the reply. She wouldn't have made it the rest of the night..."

Ayla said she shared the post to encourage other mums-to-be to trust their instincts. Baby Maddy survived, but had Ayla not gone to the hospital, she would not have.

"You know your body and what's normal for your baby. And BABIES DON'T RUN OUT OF ROOM!! that was the common response I kept seeing. Babies will always kick "Babies will always kick whether there's much room or not. IF YOU HAVE DOUBTS, GO IN. GO IN. GO IN. GO IN!!!"