Pre-eclampsia

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone. I had not intended to make a speech, but I was ashamed by the lack of Back-Bench contributors and felt moved to do so, rather than making an intervention. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) on securing the debate. Despite the poor attendance, this is an extremely important issue; the figures she outlined speak for themselves and do not need repeating by me.

I am here because my wife had pre-eclampsia during both her pregnancies. It was particularly acute during her first pregnancy, with my daughter Emma. The care she received when she was eventually admitted was exemplary. I could not fault it; it was fantastic from start to finish. However, in a similar vein to my hon. Friend’s experience, when my wife was first sent to hospital by her GP, having presented feeling nauseous and light-headed and with various other symptoms, she was not taken entirely seriously when she got there. Her blood pressure was up and down, and at one point she was accused of white coat syndrome and sent home. But she knows her own body, and she did not feel right at all, so she phoned up, went back to the hospital and was eventually admitted.

My hon. Friend is right that, even now, awareness and diagnosis of pre-eclampsia is still not good enough and must be improved. Despite its prevalence, pre-eclampsia does not get the attention or research it deserves. The fact that I am the only other Back-Bench speaker is probably a testament to that. My eldest was born six and a half weeks early, at 3 lb 10 oz, in an emergency caesarean. After an extended stay in hospital, she was sent home healthy, and she is still healthy—touch wood—to this day. My wife had no repercussions from the condition thereafter. She got pre-eclampsia again, albeit a much milder version, in her second pregnancy, which almost went to full term.

Many mothers with pre-eclampsia will give birth prematurely, and premature birth is an issue we have discussed in this Chamber of late. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden), who will speak for the SNP from the Front Bench, will talk more about that. My daughter Emma was born six and a half weeks premature, and once she was born my wife, who had had a caesarean section, sent me straight back to work, because she wanted my paternity leave to coincide with her arriving back from hospital so that I could help around the house. It does not feel natural in the slightest to go back to work with a daughter in an incubator and a wife recovering from surgery, but back to work I went, because that was her wish.

I went back to work and spoke with colleagues, receiving their congratulations and so on. About an hour and a half after getting in, I was pulled into the office by my boss, who essentially sent me straight back to the hospital—I was given additional paid leave for as long as I required it. I was extremely lucky, but that was only because my boss and another colleague had had similar experiences, so they were in a position to help me and my wife. However, it should not be down to luck. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East will go into more detail, but I fully back the calls made by him and the all-party parliamentary group on premature and sick babies for extended parental leave in such circumstances. I hope that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will publish the report on its review as soon as possible.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran once again on bringing forward the debate. I sincerely hope that this is the important first step in giving this condition the attention it deserves at parliamentary and governmental level.