Mum-to-be spends 3 months in tilted bed to avoid miscarriage

A pregnant mother, who had suffered repeated miscarriages, has given birth to a baby girl after lying upside down for three months.

Donna Kelly suffered from a weak cervix and was warned at five months into the pregnancy that she was at high risk of losing another baby.u00a0The 29-year-old agreed to spend 24 hours a day on a hospital bed which was tilted skywards to lift her feet above her head and reduce pressure on her cervix.

Under the supervision of Siobhan Quenby, a world-expert on recurrent miscarriages, Kelly ate, read and watched television in the position, only leaving her bed to visit the toilet.u00a0She gave birth to Amelia, weighing 4lbs 15ozs, six weeks prematurely by emergency caesarean after her waters broke in late August. The baby spent two weeks in an incubator in intensive care before being allowed home.

The birth of her first child, Joshua, four years ago is believed to have permanently weakened her cervix. She miscarried twice, at 23 weeks and 19 weeks, before Amelia was conceived. Attempts to stitch the neck of her cervix and strengthen it with hormone were unsuccessful.

"I was surprised when she told me to lie in bed at a tilt but I was ready to give anything a try," the Telegraph quoted Kelly, a former gynaecological nurse from Coventry as saying.u00a0"It made me feel sick and I had a massive head rush at first but after a couple of days my body adjusted and I soon got used to it.

"I'd even have to stay in the bed to eat by rolling onto my side, but I'd always have a dead arm by the end.u00a0"It could be boring at times but I knew it wouldn''''t be as painful as losing my baby.u00a0"After the first miscarriage you think it's just bad luck, but when it happens again you begin to suspect there is something seriously wrong," she added.