The brunette beauty and her actor husband Edward Burns welcomed their daughter Grace in 2003 and she enjoyed a “perfect” birth, even though the tot was two weeks late.
However, doctors became worried when more than an hour passed after the delivery and Turlington had still failed to pass the baby’s placenta.
The star was diagnosed with a postpartum haemorrhage (PPH), a potentially life-threatening complication, and medics were required to remove the placenta by hand – which Turlington describes as “an excruciatingly painful experience”.
She tells Britain’s Daily Mail, “The whole experience (birth) was perfect. I thought I could happily do it over and over again. The staff looking after me came in and checked on us every so often but I hardly noticed what was going on around me as I was totally preoccupied with my new daughter and my husband.
“Our obstetrician was called as after almost an hour I still hadn’t delivered the placenta. He said he would have to remove it by hand. The procedure must be done quickly – there is no time for painkillers. The placenta has to be torn away and the doctor needs to make sure there is nothing left inside, as this can cause infections.
“It was an excruciatingly painful experience. The delivery of Grace was nothing compared to it and I’d had no pain relief then either. There was a lot of bleeding, but what happened was nobody’s fault. My doctor and his team were fantastic.”
Turlington has since teamed up with a number of charities to highlight the importance of good hospital facilities in third-world countries and she is backing the Every Mother Counts campaign, which aims to combat unnecessary deaths during childbirth.
She explains, “The fact is 90 per cent of these maternal deaths are preventable.”
