Olympic champion Rebecca Adlington said she “couldn’t help blaming myself” when her daughter was stillborn.
The swimmer, 35, lost her third child, Harper, when she was stillborn at 20 weeks in October last year.
She told the Sunday Times: “I couldn't help blaming myself. You analyse everything, but I'd done everything by the book — sleeping on my left side, not lying on my back, not eating this and that, no alcohol — and then this still happened.”
She said Harper’s death was “hard for me to accept” but added that the post-mortem showed there “was no reason” for her death and she had “come to terms with that somehow”.
Adlington, who has a son Albie, aged three, with her husband Andy Parsons, and a daughter, Summer, nine, from a previous marriage, said her children talk about their sister in a “not really sad, emotional way”.
The athlete, who previously had a miscarriage in 2022, said she and her husband had gone through counselling together.
She said: “Afterwards I hated my body because it couldn't keep Harper alive. I felt it had let me down and I didn't look after myself: I wasn't exercising and eating badly.
“It was only about four months ago I managed to pull myself out of the darkness a bit. I thought, ‘Right, I have two kids I have to be around for as long as possible.’ But it's something that will always be here.”
Adlington, who worked as a BBC analyst at this year’s Olympics in Paris, won two Golds atBeijing and two Bronze medals four years later at London 2012.
The Mansfield-born Olympian win in the Olympic 400 metres freestyle in Beijing meant she became Britain’s first female swimming gold medallist for 48 years.
She retired from the sport in 2013 and regularly appears on the BBC as a commentator.
