Most of Lindsay Herriott’s first pregnancy had been “super easy,” she tells TODAY.com. She gave birth in September 2022, and that was relatively simple as well.
At 10-and-a-half pounds, her new son, Davis, was as big as she’d been warned he would be. But Herriott was “discharged really quickly,” and went home ready for rest.
Herriott, 40, of Chicago, Illinois, was feeling swollen and tired, noting that her legs especially were swollen. But she was told this was all normal, especially after giving birth to a large baby, and went home.
“We’d only been home a day or so, and it got to the point where I couldn’t lay down,” she recalls. “If I laid down, I felt like my heart was racing, and I just couldn’t sleep.”
She called her obstetrician’s office multiple times and was told by staff, “You’re stressed, you’re worried about your baby, you’re a first-time mom,” Herriott says. A Google search confirmed that anxiety or stress could explain her symptoms on paper, but the label still didn’t feel right to her.
A close friend, who also happens to be a therapist, reminded Herriott that anxiety isn’t normal for her. “I have my own problems, but anxiety is not one of them,” Herriott says. “I’ve never had the Sunday scaries.”
She let it go for another day or two, but developed “a really heavy chest and an awful cough,” she says. Herriott called her doctor’s office again and was told that she probably had COVID, she recalls.
But her symptoms only got worse. Soon after, Herriott was up at night feeding her baby when she thought she was coughing up phlegm.
“When I turned on the light, I saw I was actually spitting up blood,” she says.
At that point, Herriott knew she needed to rush to urgent care, where her blood pressure reading was “200 over something” and the situation felt “really scary,” she recalls.
Herriott turned down the offer of an ambulance and drove herself to the hospital. To her surprise, she was “whisked back quickly,” and diagnosed with postpartum preeclampsia, a potentially life-threatening pregnancy complication.
Preeclampsia Can Happen During Pregnancy — Or Right After Giving Birth
“Preeclampsia is a blood pressure condition that occurs either at the end of or just after a pregnancy,” Dr. Priya Freaney, director of the Northwestern Postpartum Hypertension Program within the Women’s Heart Care Program, tells TODAY.com.
It’s a form of hypertension (high blood pressure) that can have severe, even life-threatening, complications for both the pregnant person and their baby if it’s not treated promptly.
The vast majority of cases of preeclampsia happen during pregnancy, says Freaney, who is now Herriott’s cardiologist. And postpartum preeclampsia occurs in fewer than 1% of all pregnancy, she adds.
During or after pregnancy, preeclampsia can cause symptoms such as severe headaches, shortness of breath, changes in vision, pain in the upper belly and nausea or vomiting, the Mayo Clinic says.
In Herriott’s case, another condition — a leaky mitral valve in her heart — caused her to cough up blood.
This condition is “often asymptomatic for many years or decades for people,” Freaney explains, “and only comes to light when the system is provoked in a way.”
Herriott’s elevated blood pressure, combined with the extra fluid in her body due to pregnancy, caused her mitral valve leak to push fluid backwards into the lungs. That can lead to shortness of breath and coughing up blood, Freaney says.
Because of the preeclampsia, Herriott’s medical team took a deeper look at her heart and discovered the mitral valve issue. Both conditions will require some additional monitoring for the rest of Herriott’s life.
A Second Pregnancy Gave Herriott Another Set of Challenges
Knowing that having preeclampsia once put her at risk for the condition again, Herriott’s was on the lookout for the symptoms during her second pregnancy.
After giving birth to son Oakley in October 2024, she was discharged. And, just a few days later, she noticed her heart racing when she tried to lie down — just like before.
“I felt like I couldn’t really breathe and I was just in a panic,” she recalls. “I was like, ‘Maybe I’m just having PTSD, but my chest feels so heavy.'”
This time, Herriott woke her husband up and contacted her cardiologist’s office. A few hours later, she got a call from the nurse, who urged her to rush to the ER.
Again, Herriott was rushed back for testing. This time, though, she was diagnosed with preeclampsia — and a pulmonary embolism (blood clot in the lungs), another life-threatening complication that can occur after pregnancy.
For Herriott, the experience stirred up a mix of emotions. While she was relieved to have a cardiologist in her corner who could advocate for her in the hospital, learning she also had a pulmonary embolism was terrifying.
“I immediately started crying because that’s what you see in movies where people just drop dead,” she says.
Herriott was treated promptly in the hospital, and then had to give herself injections of a blood thinner until she was done breastfeeding.
Preeclampsia Has Lifelong Implications for Heart Health
“A lot of people believe that preeclampsia is a pregnancy problem, and when the pregnancy is over, the preeclampsia is over,” Freaney says.
But the message experts are trying to deliver now is that “preeclampsia predicts future heart health,” she explains.
Having preeclampsia is associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular disease later on, including heart attack and stroke, research shows. And those elevated risks can persist for decades after giving birth, as TODAY.com explained previously.
So, while preeclampsia emerges during or directly after pregnancy, it can have a lifelong impact. That’s why Freaney encourages people to think of preeclampsia as “an opportunity for heart disease prevention.”
Herriott’s newly diagnosed health conditions mean she’ll be in contact with her cardiologist for the rest of her life. She monitors her own blood pressure regularly, and she may one day need her mitral valve replaced, she says.
She encourages others to push to find a doctor they trust. Ideally, that doctor is someone who, like Freaney, specializes in the condition you’re dealing with.
More than anything, though, Herriott hopes her story encourages others to take their symptoms seriously, and to trust their instincts when something feels wrong — especially after giving birth.
Looking back on her second pregnancy, Herriott says, “I was proud of myself for trusting my own gut and (recognizing) that, even in the throes of all the hormones, you do know your body.”
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
Great Job Sarah Jacoby | TODAY & the Team @ NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth Source link for sharing this story.
