When Oti Mabuse went into labour ten weeks ahead of her due date, she didn’t have time to be scared. ‘It was a spontaneous birth, and so you're shocked at what's happening because it's not what you expect, and you're not ready,' The Strictly Come Dancing star tells Grazia. 'You're not ready with a hospital bag, you're not ready mentally, physically, emotionally. You haven't had that time to process that this is happening and this human being is coming. You really are just put on the spot with it.
‘I think when you're in the moment, because I didn’t have anything to refer it to, it doesn’t feel scary. It just felt like I had to get on with it. You know, this is life.’
But naturally, when her daughter – whose name has been kept out of the public eye – arrived at 31 weeks, the stress didn’t dissipate and the newborn was rushed into critical care, where she spent one week in an incubator and a total of six weeks in the neonatal unit.
‘Giving birth prematurely, your whole experience is completely different,' Oti, 34, explains. ‘You're in a room and your child is in an incubator and they have all these tubes around them. They have breathing tubes, eating tubes. Their foot is connected to machines. And it’s amazing that the NHS is able to care for children born this young and they’re incredible, but it is overwhelming.
‘She was in good hands, she was getting the best care possible. All the consultants and the doctors and the nurses were so passionate about their jobs and taking care of all the babies in the neonatal unit. It sounds scary, but when you're in it and see how much everyone cares you feel reassured.’
The Dancing on Ice judge is working with Pampers for World Prematurity Day, to help raise awareness of the accessibility of Pampers Preemie Protection nappies. ‘The main issue is how unprepared you are for all of it,' she explains. 'I didn’t even have nappies, let alone ones that would fit her. That's why I'm so happy to be working with Pampers. With premature children, their skin is so gentle and it's so thin and it's so volatile that these pampers are really gentle on their skin. And they’re the right size! So it makes things that are scary, like the first nappy change, more of a bonding experience rather than a time to stress because you know you have the right kind of nappy for them.’
Luckily Oti’s ten-month old daughter – who share shares with husband of ten years Marius Lepure – hasn’t experienced any long-term negative effects of being born ten weeks premature.
‘She's quite advanced, actually, for her age, and she's crawling, and she's talking and she's moving around, and she's starting to walk now, slowly,’ Oti Mabuse gushes over her daughter who is in the room with her as she chats to Grazia over Zoom. ‘I think we're really one of the lucky ones, because there are some mums who message me on Instagram and share their exhausting and scary journey.’
And Oti – who will be entering the I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here jungle on 17 November – believes that she’s learnt a lot from the experience. 'I think the only impact is that I’m especially cautious about her and her health. The NHS has been amazing. You keep going back to the hospital to make sure that everything's okay and the doctors are still very much involved in her life. The experience just made me a strong and resilient person for her.
‘An amazing part of the neonatal care is the mental health specialist - they come in and they check on the mum, they check on the dads, they check on the grandparents because a lot happens, and it's quite traumatising for everyone involved.’
Daisy Hall is a News and Entertainment writer on Grazia