Mother’s warning after deadly flesh-eating disease almost kills her a week after birth

Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Get our free Health Check email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. open image in gallery Ms Chatterton said it was when she woke up in the night to breastfeed her daughter and the rash had not only tripled in size but was “so incredibly hot” that her fiancee Liam Boyne, 27, suggested they go to the hospital After a number of tests, a scan revealed pockets of gas underneath her tissue. open image in gallery Doctors told the finance administrator she had necrotising fasciitis - also known as the ‘flesh-eating disease’ - and would need immediate surgery Ms Chatteron was kept sedated for three days after the surgery, and when she woke up, she said she was repeatedly told, “I was very lucky, they caught it early, and things would’ve been a lot worse.” She had two wounds on her stomach, which were left open for almost a week to enable her body to recover before she was fitted with a vacuum pump, which was latterly removed. open image in gallery Ms Chatterton spoke about her inability to enjoy being a new mother to her firstborn child as perhaps the hardest part of her whole experience “It was awful, so hard. “It is better to get this everything’s fine diagnosis than leave it and potentially die.” In February, footballer Luke Abrahams, 20, from East Hunsbury, did die in hospital after contracting the “flesh-eating” virus.