Louise Thompson admits she is feeling torn. On the one hand, she has found a sense of purpose in campaigning for change, as she raises awareness of her petition calling on the government to appoint a dedicated Maternity Minister - a cause shaped by her own traumatic experience giving birth to her son Leo in 2022. On the other hand, it is a painful period of her life to revisit - particularly when she now has a curious four-year-old asking questions.
"It is challenging, because he is now at an age where he can slightly understand what I do," the Made In Chelsea star-turned influencer-turned campaigner, 35, tells HELLO!. The little boy she shares with fiancé Ryan Libbey, also 35, accidentally laid eyes on the Instagram reel she recently shared as part of her aforementioned campaign - which has well-surpassed the 100,000 needed to be considered for a debate in Parliament.
Part of the video featured footage showing Louise, tearful in a hospital bed, having just swerved death giving birth to Leo, while her newborn son was shown in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The post was movingly dedicated to "all those who didn’t survive and those who lost their babies", and it is not at all lost on her that their fate could have been very different.
"I didn't really want him to see the clip, because it was him as a baby with wires coming out of him," she shares. "He asked if he could see a picture of him in my tummy, and so I scrolled back to when 2021, when I was pregnant, to find an image of a scan - it felt quite healing to look through that moment in time as a unit, but it was also hard. I did have a moment where my brain went to a not very nice place."
Indeed, since the day Leo arrived, Louise has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a mental health condition caused by very stressful, frightening or distressing events, and which can trigger symptoms such as flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety. She has also, heartbreakingly, suffered with post-partum depression and felt suicidal at points in her recovery.
© @louise.thompson / InstagramIt can all be traced back, Louise believes, to being talked out of a planned C-section at her NHS hospital. She ended up being forced to have an emergency C-section; during the procedure, an artery was nicked, and she suffered a uterine rupture. Doctors spent several hours trying to save her life, while her son stopped breathing and had to be taken to the NICU.
Then, just two days later and having been discharged, Louise haemorrhaged at home and lost five litres of blood. After making it to the hospital with just minutes to spare, she spent several weeks in intensive care. Subsequently, in 2024, she had to have her colon removed, due to pre-existing colitis that had been exacerbated by the birth, and have a colostomy bag fitted. Many more hospital trips followed, and it was only in November that she was able to celebrate 12 months of no emergency surgery.
"It's taken a long time to process and I was just living in fear - I still feel upset and scared by what happened."
It is understandable that Louise is still reeling from the effects. "It's taken a long time to process and I was just living in fear - I still feel upset and scared by what happened," she says. There have also been the fleeting bouts of uncharacteristic rage. "I remember literally smashing a plate on the floor in anger at home in my kitchen, which my mum and brother Sam [Thompson] witnessed," she shares, of how her PTSD sometimes manifested.
Louise is also still healing from having spent Leo's first year unable to be the mother she wanted, with Ryan stepping into the role of both parents as she recovered. "I do get triggered when I go to my local health club, because there are a lot of new mums there and I do recognise the differences that they have [to her own experience of new motherhood]," she says. "They make it look so easy."
The latest phase of Louise's health journey has seen her come to terms with the events of two years ago when she had to travel home from a holiday in Antigua to have emergency surgery that resulted in her having a colostomy bag fitted. "Every morning I get up, then I've got to take the bag off, clean myself and then put another one back on," she explains, of her daily routine ever since.
© Max Cisotti/Dave Benett/Getty Im"Ryan [her fiancé] doesn't find it the most glamorous thing in the world, bless him, but he's incredibly supportive," insists Louise, of her partner whom she met in 2016 and has been engaged to since 2018. She jokes that, for those who are single and dating, it is the best way to weed out the 'bad eggs' when choosing a life partner.
Flying comes with further practicalities that Louise has had to learn. "There's the having to pack extra things, feeling nervous about it blowing up in the air and not being able to change it because the plane toilets are a really confined space," she points out. Talking of flying, she is returning to Antigua in March where she hopes to erase some "pretty horrible memories" and "rewrite history".
Louise might even, she says, bear her colostomy bag in a bikini on the beach for the first time. "It takes a while to adjust from a confidence perspective," she reveals. "You're kind of thrown into it when you have an emergency surgery - you're so relieved that you've survived that you kind of just get on with it really quickly - and then it takes a while to really recognise the change and what that might look like for the rest of your life."
© @louise.thompson / InstagramYet, while Louise insists that she feels like a "different person" as she eases into 2026, she is aware that another challenge lies ahead: growing her family with Ryan. "It's been at the back of my mind at every milestone my son has, and every time I see another pregnant person," she says. "I work out the age gap and think 'that could have been us'."
The decision to have another child is one that, with a great deal of patience, they have finally arrived at. Louise has done two rounds of IVF to create embryos, a process that she wishes she had explored before, due to the health set-backs she has experienced and conscious of the conversations about women's fertility declining after 35.
"I started thinking about it at the beginning of last year, and then I had a lot of rectal bleeding and I was trying a new medication and some of the medications I wasn't allowed to do any fertility treatment on," Louise explains of the complexities of getting to this point. She has also previously said that, due to her severe health complications, she won’t be able to carry her own child - and she and Ryan have been open about considering surrogacy.
Still, her ultimate emotion when thinking about giving Leo a sibling? "I think it feels exciting," she beams. "This is what we're working out at the moment, the gear change of the practicalities of having another baby. It's never easy. The timing is never perfect. What would it look like taking maternity leave? Doing it properly and really enjoyably…I'd love to have a maternity leave." Something that was cruelly taken from her the first time round.
© Gareth Cattermole/Getty ImagesWhen Louise thinks of the moment she will eventually walk down the aisle towards Ryan - something which makes her become emotional - she describes it as "beautiful to be able to have your child or children at your own wedding". She adds: "It will be a very meaningful day. It feels overwhelming to even think about how much love and emotion will go into it."
The planning is very much in its infancy, as Louise wants to reach a point where life is "slower" and she has the "capacity" to make it perfect. "I think we'll walk in [a venue] somewhere and go 'this is where it should happen and this is when it should be' and we are edging closer to that definitely," she shares.
For now, however, Louise's energies are focused on ensuring all women are given the right to a safe and dignified birth. "It's turning pain into purpose," she says, of what prompted her to create the petition with former MP Theo Clarke, who had also had a traumatic birth and with whom she connected on a common goal - to tackle the increasing numbers of baby and maternal deaths - after her memoir Lucky came out in 2024. "I feel grateful because I was able to get better and I did survive."
Louise notes: "As humans, we're problem solvers, and I know that I've been trying to find answers for what happened to me. Sometimes the answers aren't obvious, but if I can look for answers on behalf of the many women reaching out to me directly every day - asking to be heard - it will hopefully provide me with some clarity as well."
Sign the petition to appoint a Maternity Minister to to improve maternity care for mums and babies here
