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Teenager born with two wombs wakes from coma to learn she was pregnant and had baby girl

‘Waking up from a coma to be told I had been pregnant and had given birth to a baby girl was overwhelming... It felt like an out of body experience,’ Ebony Stevenson said

Alex Matthews-King
Health Correspondent
Monday 18 February 2019 13:54 GMT
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Teenager born with two wombs wakes from coma to learn she was pregnant and had baby girl

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A college student who went to bed with a headache awoke from a coma four days later to learn she had been pregnant and was now a mother.

Ebony Stevenson, 18, from Oldham, Greater Manchester, was rushed to hospital on 2 December after she had a number of seizures and had to be put into an induced coma.

Despite not having a visible bump or having missed her period, clinicians said Ms Stevenson was pregnant.

Her seizures were being caused by pre-eclampsia – a pregnancy complication usually picked up at antenatal checks – and needed an emergency caesarean.

Her daughter Elodie was born on Monday 3 December, but Ms Stevenson only met her three days later when she was brought out of her coma.

“Waking up from a coma to be told I had been pregnant and had given birth to a baby girl was overwhelming to say the least,” she said.

“Meeting my baby was so surreal. It felt like an out of body experience.”

The sports physiotherapy student has a rare condition affecting around one in 3,000 women called uterus didelphys – meaning she was born with two uteruses.

‘It sounds awful now, but [when I woke] I asked them to take her away as I was so confused and sure they’d made a mistake’
‘It sounds awful now, but [when I woke] I asked them to take her away as I was so confused and sure they’d made a mistake’ (SWNS)
‘Miracle’ baby Elodie was born a healthy 7lbs 10oz suggesting she was carried for a full pregnancy without her mother noticing
‘Miracle’ baby Elodie was born a healthy 7lbs 10oz suggesting she was carried for a full pregnancy without her mother noticing (SWNS)

This is thought to explain why her pregnancy was hidden, and she was able to continue having periods despite the developing foetus in her other uterus.

It also makes Elodie’s birth particularly improbable as only one uterus was connected to an ovary by a fallopian tube, which would in theory lower her chances of conceiving.

“I worried I wouldn’t bond with my daughter because I had no time to get my head around her arrival, but I think she’s amazing,” Ms Stevenson said.

“It sounds awful now, but I asked them to take her away as I was so confused and sure they’d made a mistake,” she said, recalling the first moments after she regained consciousness.

“But my mum explained it all to me while the nurses were there and they gave my little girl back to me to hold properly for the first time.”

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Elodie was born 7lbs 10oz (3.5kg), and from her weight doctors believe she was carried to full term without her mother realising, perhaps because one of Ms Stevneson’s uteruses was closer to her back.

“The doctors said that Elodie was a miracle baby, as women with her condition often struggle to conceive or carry to full term,” Ebony’s mother Sheree Stevenson said.

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