Childbirth is perhaps one of the most profound physical, emotional, and mental experiences any person can go through. More than 3 million women in the United States get to experience this ordinary miracle every year. The good news is that for most of them, childbirth is a story that ends with the happy announcement that "mom and baby are doing great" and the pain of childbirth starts to become a distant memory. But unfortunately, sometimes scary and even life-threatening complications can happen that remind us that childbirth isn't always risk-free.
Childbirth complications can include everything from the dangerously high blood pressure that can come with preeclampsia to perineal tears to excessive bleeding or hemorrhages following delivery. The scary thing about childbirth complications is that even the healthiest moms who have had the easiest pregnancies might still have unexpected complications.
Because pregnancy can be a great equalizer (no matter how famous someone might be, leaky boobs and swollen ankles can happen to anyone), even some famous celebrity moms have experienced serious childbirth complications. Here, we've gathered birth stories from 15 of them.
Serena Williams
Tennis champion Serena Williams was incredibly blunt when she described her childbirth experience to CNN in 2018, saying: "I almost died after giving birth to my daughter, Olympia." Her childbirth complications included an emergency C-section, a pulmonary embolism, and several surgeries, including one to repair her stitches after coughing so hard she burst her surgical wound open. It was harrowing, and since having this experience, she's become an advocate for improving maternal health outcomes, especially for women of color.
Christy Turlington Burns
Another celebrity mom who became an activist after surviving a scary childbirth complication is supermodel Christy Turlington Burns. After delivering her daughter, she had a retained placenta that resulted in significant blood loss. She realized that this was the kind of incident that leads to maternal death in many places and eventually started her nonprofit group, Every Mother Counts. She even edited a book called Arrival Stories, which is a series of essays about childbirth.
Kim Kardashian
Kim Kardashian is famously a celebrity who does not love being pregnant, and it really makes sense when we remember how challenging her pregnancies were. She suffered from placenta accreta, a condition that causes her placenta to grow too deeply into the uterus, which can result in significant blood loss after delivery and the need to have the placenta manually removed.
Beyoncé
Beyoncé is an icon of music and fashion, but even she had a rough experience when it came to the birth of her twins, Sir and Rumi. She got candid with Vogue in 2018, revealing, "I was swollen from toxemia and had been on bed rest for over a month. My health and my babies' health were in danger, so I had an emergency C-section. We spent many weeks in the NICU." Thankfully all are healthy and happy now!
Tori Spelling
Actress Tori Spelling, a mother of five kids, suffered a serious complication with her fourth pregnancy. With her son Finn, she endured 10 weeks in the hospital and months on bed rest following a diagnosis of placenta previa, which causes internal bleeding and can threaten the life of the mother and baby. Tori eventually had an emergency C-section, but both thankfully made it through OK.
Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey is the mother of twins who are now 11 years old and, according to her, are "the two greatest blessings" in her life. She faced multiple complications during the pregnancy, including gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, and early-term labor resulting in an emergency C-section.
Scheana Shay
Vanderpump Rules star Scheana Shay welcomed daughter Moon Honey Davis in 2021, but she had some very scary moments after the birth. "Almost 24 hours after being induced, my blood pressure was extremely elevated. I was diagnosed with preeclampsia, which has now turned into HELLP syndrome," she posted on Instagram at the time. "My doctor said I was lucky, and we caught this just in time to treat, as it's very unusual to be caught so late in postpartum. Until this morning, I was on a magnesium drip that made me extremely lethargic and flu-like, shivering uncontrollably to the point where I felt like I was seizing. Having not caught this condition in time, that would have been likely."
Zoe Saldana
Another celeb mom of twins who had challenging childbirth complications is actress Zoe Saldana. She delivered her sons via emergency C-section when she was only 32 weeks pregnant. "They found protein in my urine; my platelets crashed. I didn't qualify for an epidural, so I delivered under general anesthetic. I didn't even meet them until a day later," she revealed to Allure (via People). Zoe would go on to have another son two years later, but fortunately it was a much easier experience for her the second time around.
Jessa Duggar
Jessa Duggar had an unexpected home birth with her third child, daughter Ivy, that resulted in a serious complication. She had uncontrolled bleeding, which resulted in a call to 911 and a trip to the hospital for IV support and a shot of pitocin. Interestingly, this wasn't the first time she'd experienced uncontrolled bleeding, as she ended up needing a blood transfusion after the birth of her first child.
Mira Sorvino
Oscar-winning actress (and forever Romy in our hearts) Mira Sorvino was also a celebrity who dealt with the scary diagnosis of placenta previa during her pregnancy with her third child. She also suffered from a blood clot during her nearly two-month hospitalization during the pregnancy, which happily resolved with the arrival of her son Holden.
Kenya Moore
Real Housewives of Atlanta star Kenya Moore had a tough pregnancy with daughter Brooklyn. Not only did she have severe preeclampsia, she also had fibroids that made her emergency C-section more challenging. She told People, "They couldn't get the baby out. There were all these complications, and they knew if they cut into a fibroid, I could potentially bleed out and die. So they ended up cutting me vertically, to just get the baby out and make sure I survived the surgery. They were so scared they were going to lose me."
Linda Cardellini
Actress Linda Cardellini, who stars in the Netflix series Dead to Me, had a terrible combination of childbirth complications that started with getting a bad infection. She told Elle magazine the whole story: "When I was nine months pregnant, I got sick with this super-infection, which included double pneumonia. Both my eardrums blew. My face was paralyzed. And then, when I had the baby, there were a few things that happened that were also very scary. I was in labor and they were losing her heart rate, and mine was going down too, so I had to have an emergency C-section. And I had an epidural that went too far, so my breathing was compromised. And then my daughter was stuck and had the cord around her neck, which is a common complication by itself, but I had several complications at once."
Adriana Lima
Supermodel Adriana Lima, who is expecting her third baby in summer 2022, was another celebrity mom who experienced preeclampsia. She had it with her first child, daughter Valentina, and ended up delivering her at only 34 weeks because her condition was so serious.
Salma Hayek
Salma Hayek spent the nine months of her pregnancy feeling very nauseous, something that she attributes to one of the complications of gestational diabetes. She described the pregnancy as "really difficult" and has shared that she felt like it took her several years to finally feel like she'd fully recovered.
Cardi B
Cardi B is mom to two cuties, daughter Kulture and son Wave. She described her delivery of Wave as "crazy ass" and revealed on Instagram that she "lost so much blood," which is something some women could experience when they have a postpartumm hemorrhage. Thankfully Cardi and Wave are both doing great now.
