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New Mom’s Intuition Saved Her Baby’s Life From Calcified Placenta

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Feeling your baby kick and wriggle inside of you is one of the joys of expectant motherhood. But when mom-to-be Ayla Heller hadn’t felt her baby kick all day, the reason was an odd one: a calcified placenta. Today, mom and baby are happy and healthy, but Heller wants to share her story to raise awareness.

Heller was 38 weeks pregnant when she noticed her unborn baby girl, Maddy, wasn’t kicking like she normally did. Thinking Maddy was having a less active day, Heller went about her daily routine. According to Heller, Maddy switched positions around noon, but for the rest of the day, she remained pretty still. When Heller’s partner, Dalton, asked whether Maddy had been kicking, Heller realized her baby wasn’t definitely moving as much as she should have been.

That’s when Heller started to feel queasy. Mom and Dad confirmed that little Maddy’s heartbeat with their at-home Doppler machine, but the baby girl just wouldn’t move. Heller Googled her symptoms but didn’t find anything useful. Half of the internet told her that babies stop kicking when they run out of room, while the other half told her to hightail it to the hospital. Even more unsure, Heller called her mom who insisted that Heller at least call the midwife.

Her midwife told her to go to the labor center where they immediately hooked her up to machines. After some time, the labor center staff told Heller that her midwife was on the way, and that’s when Heller’s mom, who knew that was a bad sign, called the rest of the family to tell them to come down.

The midwife told Heller that her placenta had aged prematurely and calcified, reducing Maddy’s air and food flow. As a result, Mady had stopped moving to conserve her energy. In the end, Mady was fine. She needed to be hooked up to a glucose IV drip, but today mom and baby are healthy. The most amazing part is that Mady is a great-great grandbaby. How sweet!

However, had Heller not listened to her instincts, Mady wouldn’t be here, the doctors said. Talk about a miracle baby.

“So the point in me sharing this is to let anyone else know that things like this DO happen. You know your body and what’s normal for your baby,” Heller wrote on Facebook. “IF YOU HAVE DOUBTS, GO IN. GO IN. GO IN. GO IN!!! Always be safe rather than sorry. Because I almost didn’t. I almost waited till morning to see if anything changed. And had I done that, I wouldn’t have my love.”

h/t Love What Matters

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