Paloma Faith has revealed details of a traumatic labour ordeal that left her with prematurely ruptured waters and a womb infection.
The 36-year-old singer says she went "to the gates of hell" and was unable to walk properly for two months after giving birth to her first child in December last year.
"I had this amazing birth plan that was set to be all natural and amazing and then just like, everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong," Paloma tells The Sun.
"The baby was in jeopardy and so I had to have an emergency C-section. But I did nine hours of labour without pain relief then just lost the plot completely. Because I’d been in labour for a long time I had something called PROM which is a premature rupture of waters."
And the problems didn't stop with the labour itself. Afterwards, the award-winning songwriter suffered a womb infection and "really bad" mastitis.
"I don’t think I could really walk properly for a good two months," she says.
Despite her horrific experience, Paloma says she wouldn't change a thing since becoming mum to her and partner Leyman Lahcine's nine-month-old baby - the gender and name of whom they have chosen not to disclose.
"The only way I can explain it is that I went to the gates of hell and I brought back an angel because it is just so incredible and I wouldn’t change a minute of it for the world because I just think I have made the best person ever," she says.
"It was all really awful and I don’t think my body was designed for it... [but] I would do it again. I would."
Paloma wrote a handwritten note to the NHS thanking them for supporting her through her difficult labour after giving birth in December, which she posted to Instagram (above).
She's keen to emphasise that she was "treated so well" by staff at University College Hospital, London, where she delivered her little one.
Paloma Faith's new single Crybaby from her upcoming album The Architect is out now. Listen to it here
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