Pregnancy is considered to be a life-changing experience for every woman. It’s like a second birth that turns a woman into a completely different person, in a good way, of course. But the journey of being pregnant is not always easy.
Recently, Padma Laxmi opened up about her pregnancy complications that forced her to take complete bed rest for almost three months. She shared that while she was pregnant with her daughter Krishna Thea in 2010, she had to go through with a scary condition called Placenta Previa. The ex-supermodel stated, “it was so scary”, on the December 9, 2021 episode of “Me becoming mom”, a People podcast.
So what is the condition “Placenta Previa”?
The Mayo Clinic explains that in this complicated pregnancy condition, the organ (aka the placenta) that provides the required oxygen and nutrition to the fetus, covers the pregnant lady’s cervix. And in Laxmi’s case the situation was quite serious, which is why the doctors hesitated to give her a discharge from the hospital. She mentions that the doctors only let go because her mother was a registered nurse and she promised to let her move in so that she could give her one-to-one nursing.
The challenges Laxmi had to face
Laxmi, 51, also shared that her movement was severely restricted and the doctor only advised her to use the bathroom twice a day, that too, under her mother’s surveillance. She was only allowed to shower once in three days, and if found cheating, she was warned of being immediately taken to the hospital.
The poor lady had no choice but to get used to this new routine. The Taste the Nation host and cookbook author shared, she did everything from bed; be it important meetings with network executives or anything else for that matter. A sturdy leather chair was put at the foot of her bed so her meetings could go smoothly, she added.
Is Placenta Previa common?
According to the National Library of Medicine, Placenta Previa is found in one in two hundred pregnant women. It is a severe condition that comes with various dysfunctionalities, like severe bleeding during pregnancy that may also lead to hemorrhage and preterm birth.
The most common and prevalent signs of this condition are bright red bleeding during the later half of the pregnancy, along with some mild contractions. In case this situation develops in the initial stages of the pregnancy, there’s still some hope that it can be fixed, but the later the condition continues, the harder it is to fix.
Laxmi’s take on motherhood
In her podcast, Laxmi also shared how being a mother has changed her life and transformed her as a person on both physical and mental levels. For quite a long time, she wasn’t sure about being a mother at all, a feeling most women go through. But as times changed, she got clarity and the thought of stepping into motherhood became more concrete.
