Rutland and Stamford MP Alicia Kearns reveals life-threatening condition ahead of birth of third child

The MP for Rutland and Stamford has revealed she’s suffering from a life-threatening condition ahead of the birth of her third child.

Alicia Kearns (Con) is due to have her baby tomorrow (Tuesday, April 29) and ahead of that wrote in her fortnightly column that her “pregnancy journey has been far from easy”.

She wrote: “Ahead of giving birth I wanted to continue to be open as it's going to be a little more challenging than my last.

“A few months ago, not long after I was hospitalised due to bleeding, I was diagnosed with placenta previa, and a second more rare condition, placenta accreta.

“Placenta previa is where the placenta is low-lying, covering the entirety of the cervix, making a natural birth impossible with a risk of pre-term birth and bleeding. Placenta accreta is where the placenta then attaches too deeply to, and invades, the wall of the uterus and/or bladder. This condition requires early delivery of the baby by c-section, a hysterectomy as soon as the baby is delivered to manage the significant bleeding because the placenta cannot be separated from the uterus, and blood transfusions are expected.

“As this condition can be life-threatening, and the surgery significant, I have been warned my recovery times in hospital will not be insignificant.

“What this means is that I will be laid up longer than usual after the birth of my daughter. I will have a proxy vote in Parliament so that I can continue to vote while I am on leave, and locally I am determined to make sure anyone in need, and our communities, continue to be supported.

“As such, my wonderful and experienced team will as ever continue to assist residents in need of help, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you are struggling with a personal issue and need our assistance.”

She also thanked everyone who had been so “wonderfully supportive”.

Her column also read: “I’m delighted that this week we will see pipes going back into the ground on the Peterborough to Grantham section of Anglian Water’s pipeline. I promised you I would work to get this resolved, and I’m pleased to have got the pipeline installation re-started 18 months earlier than planned.

“Looking to Westminster I continue my work to protect Rutland’s ceremonial county status and held a call with the Deputy Prime Minister who has committed to work with me on a solution. My team also supported the Benedict Blythe Foundation’s allergy awareness week event, calling on the Government to make schools safer for all children with allergies.

“This last fortnight also saw me lay amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill to require three penalty points to be added to the driving licence of a person convicted of a fly-tipping offence to improve deterrence – in the last Parliament I increased fly-tipping fines from £400 to £1000, and this is the next step. I’ve also laid an amendment to make the theft of high-value farming equipment an aggravating factor in sentencing, and another to ensure the fine charged to a person guilty of equipment theft reflects the cost to the tradesperson of replacing their equipment, repairing their property or equipment damaged in the theft, and business lost as a result. I hope the Government will accept them. As many of you will know, I have long called for the solar industry to clean up its supply chains and end its use of Uyghur forced labour. The Government’s u-turn announcing it will ban the use of solar panels linked to Uyghur slave labour by Britain’s state-owned energy company GB Energy is welcome as going green on blood labour is wrong. Sadly, this decision is unlikely to affect Mallard Pass, however I have been in discussions with the new owners of the solar plant to discuss their approach to supply chains which is far more robust than that of their predecessors.”