What should have been a purely joyful experience of welcoming her first baby became a whole lot more challenging than anyone could have imagined when Duchess Sophie gave birth to Lady Louise in 2003. So much so, that the memory of the traumas she went through apparently never left her, according to a new biography of the Duchess of Edinburgh.
Author Sean Smith explores this frightening moment in Sophie: Saving the Royal Family, where he claimed that the Palace press secretary, Ailsa Anderson, dropped everything in the middle of a dinner party after hearing that the Duchess was being rushed to Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey.
She underwent an emergency caesarean because she was reportedly showing all the signs of acute placental abruption.
This is the medical term for when the placenta has separated from the uterus and the author wrote that Sophie’s condition was so bad that neither she nor the baby might have survived.
The Duchess of Edinburgh reportedly required a transfusion of nine pints of blood and allegedly slipped in and out of consciousness after Louise was born on 8th November, weighing 4lb 9oz. Her daughter was the first royal baby to be born in an NHS hospital and she was hastily taken to St George’s Hospital for specialist care.
Sean suggested that the Duchess hadn’t been aware of this at the time, writing, Sophie had no idea the baby had been taken away as the bottle continued to save her life and she slipped in and out of consciousness, this time requiring a transfusion of nine pints of blood.
In the biographer’s view the newspapers were not being overdramatic when they said Sophie was fifteen minutes from death. Prince Edward, who had been undertaking duties in Mauritius when his wife was taken to hospital, was allegedly shaken to discover the severity of what happened and that his newborn daughter wasn’t with her mum.
Duchess Sophie spent 16 days in hospital before she and baby Louise returned home to Bagshot Park and mother and daughter were reunited during this time. Before they left, Queen Elizabeth paid them a visit in a remarkable and touching breach of royal protocol.
"The Queen was sufficiently concerned that she broke with traditional protocol and made a hospital visit to see how Sophie and her latest grandchild were getting along," Sean claimed.
Queen Elizabeth usually waited to meet her grandchildren and great-grandchildren with their doting parents after they’d gone home from the hospital, such as when she was introduced to Prince Archie at Windsor Castle two days after he was born. Making a rare exception here shows her desire to be there for Sophie and Louise at this worrying time.
In his biography, Sean Smith claimed that the "memory" of the trauma "never left Sophie". The King’s sister-in-law is said to have remarked upon the profound impact it had upon her when she returned to Frimley Park Hospital to open a neonatal ward in 2014. During the visit, the senior royal reportedly burst into tears when she met the midwives who worked to help save her.
She bravely shared, "For the first ten years after Louise was born, I found it very hard to go to ‘prem’ wards. It would bring the whole thing back, but I’ve learned to cope."
