Meghan Markle’s new podcast, Confessions Of A Female Founder, is officially here, and the Duchess of Sussex opens the series with a frank conversation with her friend, Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd. Less strawberry jam-coded than her recent television show With Love, Meghan, the podcast’s premise is simple: informal chats between Markle and the astronomically successful, entrepreneurial friends that make up her inner circle.
It’s not reinventing the wheel, but there’s something in the intimacy of conversations between people who know each other well, and in the case of Meghan, have been witness to many of the private moments the public never sees. The episode covers the fact that both Markle, who is mom to Prince Archie, five, and Princess Lilibet, three, and Wolfe Herd, who has two young boys, experienced postpartum preeclampsia—a rare but potentially fatal condition that’s characterized by high blood pressure and excessive levels of protein in the urine.
“We both had very similar experiences, though we didn’t know each other at the time, with postpartum, and we both had preeclampsia—postpartum preeclampsia,” Markle shared, describing the experience as so rare and so scary. “You’re still trying to juggle all of these things, and the world doesn’t know what’s happening quietly. And in the quiet, you’re still trying to show up for people—mostly for your children—but those things are huge medical scares.”
“While postpartum preeclampsia typically occurs within the first 48 hours following delivery, it can sometimes happen weeks later, too,” medical expert and founder of Solice Health, Dr Liza Osagie-Clouard, explains to Vogue. “It mirrors the signs of preeclampsia during pregnancy but strikes when many assume the risk has passed.” According to the Preeclampsia Foundation, the window for the condition begins at delivery and stops at six weeks postpartum.
To the outside world, there was no indication that Markle was privately dealing with a condition that only affects around 0.3 per cent of post-delivery people in the U.K. each year, and signs of which can be easy to miss. Dr Osagie-Clouard describes the symptoms as a severe headache, blurred vision, swelling in the face or limbs, sudden weight gain, and pain just beneath the ribs. “High blood pressure is also a key red flag, especially if it’s accompanied by nausea or shortness of breath,” she cautions.
Markle did not specify which of her pregnancies was followed by postpartum preeclampsia, but the conversation—a glimpse behind the curtain—is an honest and vulnerable one.
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