Jamelia has revealed that the birth of her fourth child, a daughter, was “incredibly traumatic”.
The singer, 41, gave birth to her yet-to-be-named daughter via emergency C-section on 4 October.
The former Loose Women presenter said that her waters breaking when she was 32 weeks along was “so scary”.
“I felt like I was in labour for a month, but the main objective was to keep the baby in for as long as possible. I just had to hold on,” the singer told Hello! magazine.
A month after her waters broke, midwives at Birmingham Women’s Hospital decided to induce labour after the baby’s heart rate had dropped dramatically.
“I’d only ever seen a C-section on the telly, and thought: ‘Oh well, at least it’s going to be straightforward and I’ll be out in five minutes’,” Jamelia explained.
“There’s this idea of ‘too posh to push’, that it’s the easier option. But I found it incredibly traumatic. And then you’re recovering from major surgery while looking after a newborn.”
Jamelia’s 17-year-old daughter Tiani accompanied her for the birth, after winning a coin toss with her older sister Teja, 21, to see who would be the birthing partner.
Jamelia’s husband, whose identity has not been revealed, stayed at home with the couple’s younger daughter, True, four.
She added: “As selfish as it might sound, I wanted to share this experience with my girls.”
Despite her difficult experience giving birth, Jamelia called her newborn her “easiest and most straightforward” baby to date.
“She’s a good communicator, very chilled and has seamlessly imprinted herself onto the family. It’s been a dream to have her,” she continued.
“Being a mother to four daughters feels like the most incredible gift. I feel so fortunate to have had pregnancies in my teens, twenties, thirties and now my forties. It’s been my greatest blessing to experience motherhood at all these different times and being able to learn at different stages of my life.”
Additional reporting by PA
