As a postpartum nurse, I took care of many pre eclampsia patients but never imagined I’d be one myself. I went into labor at 39 weeks and 3 days, had a healthy baby girl and was discharged around 24 hours later. My only complication was diet controlled gestational diabetes and my sugars were always great. At 5 days postpartum, I got a dull headache that Tylenol never helped. I tried taking a nap, drinking more water but it stayed around all day. I decided to check my blood pressure and it was in the 140s over 90s (my baseline is low 100s).

Over the next hour I kept checking it and it was steadily increasing. I knew I needed to go in so we ventured to the ER. When I got there, I told the triage nurse that I was having a persistent headache, some new feet swelling that wasn’t there the day prior and that my BP was increasing at home. He downplayed all of my symptoms- “You have a headache because you’re not sleeping well, your feet are swollen from all of the fluids during labor and your BP may be high from stress of having a newborn.” Meanwhile, the machine struggled to get a reading because it was so high. Sure enough, 182/110.

When I started crying and told him I was a postpartum nurse and know how scary pre eclampsia can be, he looked shocked and asked why I didn’t tell him that before. I was so upset because no patient should ever have their symptoms downplayed. Things happened quickly after that- IV, mag bolus and a 72 hour hospital stay. I had a similar situation with my second pregnancy (even despite taking baby aspirin for 9 months), only at 6 days postpartum and a much more severe headache this time. I’m so grateful I was a postpartum nurse and knew the warning signs because having had no prior BP issues, postpartum pre eclampsia symptoms can easily be glanced over and result in seizures, stroke and death.