Ali Condon
Warning: This article contains details that may be triggering for some readers
Lauren Goodger has revealed that she can still feel her baby in the 'small bump' in her stomach, despite tragically losing the newborn shortly after birth.
The former The Only Way Is Essex star was left devastated earlier this month when baby Lorena passed away just minutes after birth, despite doctors' best efforts to save her life.
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Lauren, 35, explained that the physical recovery from the traumatic experience has been hard.
Speaking to New Magazine, the TV personality said she is still in 'agony'.
"I’ve had stitches this time as I tore inside and out, which
"I didn’t have with Larose. I’m still bleeding - I feel like I’ve been run over."
She added that she's still got 'a bit of a bump' on her stomach that's 'not shifting.'
She admitted: "It sometimes feels like she's still there, it's weird. My body feels like it's unsettled, like it's missing a newborn."
Lauren and her partner Charles Drury - with whom she shares her one-year-old daughter Larose - had originally planned for a home birth, but once her contractions started, the couple were rushed to a delivery suite via ambulance.
When baby Lorena was born on Friday, 8 July, she had a knotted umbilical cord around her neck and, despite doctors' best efforts, she could not be resuscitated.
After the devastating event, Lauren and Charles were invited to spend 24 hours with Lorena in a special room, where the mum says she 'cried the most tears'.
The couple took photos of their daughter, which Lauren now carries around with her everywhere she goes.
In a statement shared two days after Lorena’s death, Lauren – who also lost her ex-boyfriend Jake McLean in a motorbike crash earlier in July – said she was ‘broken’.
Sharing a black and white photo of her holding Lorena’s hand, she wrote: “She was the most beautiful healthy baby I’ve ever seen just like her sister @babylarose.x … words can’t describe as a mother losing your baby that I carried for all these months perfectly and gave birth too for my angel to be taken from me.”
While the mum isn't ready to think about trying for a baby just yet, she shared that if she does in the future, she would avoid a natural birth.
"If I was ever going to have another baby –-I can’t even think of that right now… I would just go for a C-section,” she said. “I can’t go through that again. I just can’t."
Lauren is now awaiting the results from her daughter’s autopsy to understand why she passed away.
If you've been affected by any of the issues in this article, contact pregnancy charity Tommy's at www.tommys.org