Little Mix star discusses trauma of losing baby at 24 weeks

Little Mix star Perrie Edwards has spoken for the first time about the trauma of losing a baby at 24 weeks.

The singer, 32, said she became pregnant less than a year after the birth of her first son, Axel, in August 2021.

But after the pregnancy passed the five-month mark, a scan revealed the baby's heart had stopped beating, which was the "worst day of my life".

"I remember sobbing," she told Paul C Brunson's We Need To Talk podcast, fighting through tears. "I couldn't see straight. I was just distraught. We basically lost the baby at, like, 24 weeks."

Edwards described the scan as "an out of body experience" and said she was unable to process the doctor's words.

The news only sunk in when her fiancé, former Liverpool footballer Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, "put his hand on my leg and went, 'Oh no'," she said.

Although the experience was "traumatising", Edwards said she had taken comfort from fellow musician Myleene Klass, who was recently awarded an MBE for her work to increase miscarriage awareness.

Klass once said that when you go through a miscarriage, "the baby stays with you".

"I was like, 'Oh wow, that's so magical'," said Edwards. "If I'm blessed enough to have another baby in the future, it makes me feel that they're still a part of it in some way."

Edwards also revealed that Axel, who turns four this week, was a "rainbow baby" - a term used to describe a baby born to a mother who has previously lost a child due to miscarriage, stillbirth or neonatal death.

She explained: "I had a miscarriage very early on with my first ever pregnancy.

"I remember finding out I was pregnant [but] I started bleeding not long after, and I went to hospital and I had the scan and they were like, 'There's no baby.'

"I was like, 'Oh, I've made this up. Maybe I got a false positive or something.'"

She was left confused about what had happened until a later appointment with her gynaecologist, who told her she had suffered a miscarriage.

Edwards said the loss hadn't affected her as badly as her second miscarriage.

"I think because it was so early, I was like, 'Oh, that's sad.'

"But I think when you're fully carrying and you're 24 weeks and you've planned out their room and all these things, it's really hard.

"I've never spoke about it before because obviously I ended up a wreck and nobody knows other than immediate friends and family."

The singer's experiences are sadly not unique.

In the UK, one in five pregnancies end in miscarriage and there are around 2,000 terminations following a pre-natal screening each year.

In 2017, a report into aftercare for women who had lost a baby during pregnancy found that, although care was good and improving in many hospitals, it was inconsistent across England, leaving some women feeling misinformed and distressed at a vulnerable time.

Last year the Department of Health and Social Care announced a package of new measures to "boost the health and wellbeing of women and girls", including a pilot scheme that will see medical intervention for women after every miscarriage.

Elsewhere in the podcast, Edwards reflected on her romance with One Direction star Zayn Malik, which began while she was a contestant on The X Factor in 2011.

The couple were engaged for a time, but the relationship fell apart in 2015 amid a flurry of press speculation, including allegations of Malik's infidelity.

"Definitely at the time, I thought everything we experienced in our relationship was normal. Because it was my first relationship, first love," she said.

"I was like, 'Oh, this is how it's supposed to feel. It's supposed to feel a little bit toxic. In some ways, this is probably normal, right?'

"And then, when I became single, I was almost thinking, 'I never, ever want to go through that again'. I didn't even want to meet anybody.

"I was like, 'That's me done'. I don't think I could bear that pain. But now, I'm thinking, 'Oh, that probably wasn't good'."

Edwards joined Little Mix when the band were formed during the eighth series of The X Factor, and the group went on to sell 75 million records worldwide.

Over the next 11 years, they became the third-biggest girl band of all time (behind the Spice Girls and the Supremes) and the first to spend more than 100 weeks inside the UK top 10.

In 2021, they became the first girl band to win best British group at the Brit Awards - but they went on hiatus shortly afterwards to "recharge" and work on solo projects.

All four members - Edwards, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Jade Thirlwall and Jesy Nelson - have released music since then, to varying degrees of success.