Former Strictly Come Dancing professional Oti Mabuse says becoming a mum has changed her “in the best way possible”.
The 34-year-old, who is heading into the I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! jungle this week, says a year of motherhood has made her “more aware, more resilient, more sensitive” and “added a level of maturity”.
Mabuse, a Dancing On Ice judge and two-time Strictly winner before she quit in 2022, says: “Motherhood really is non-stop and it’s a journey. It’s about finding out a lot about yourself and a lot about the baby, your husband, your marriage.”
Her daughter with husband Marius Iepure arrived ten weeks prematurely, in a “spontaneous, natural” labour in November 2023, and spent six weeks in neonatal intensive care.
It had come as a shock after a normal pregnancy; “I was still working, I was told everything was great, the baby is great. She had turned upside down. Her head was in the right place…”
Their daughter was born at 28 weeks and weighed less than 3lbs – “she was really tiny” – but Mabuse says she felt reassured everything would be fine, despite being diagnosed with sepsis herself. The baby, whose name they have kept private, was taken immediately for tests and placed in an incubator – her parents weren’t able to hold her for a week.
Now the South African star, an ambassador for Pampers and their Preemie Protection Nappies which are designed for the thinner skin of babies born early, wants parents-to-be to be more aware of the possibility of premature birth – which affects one in every 13 babies in the UK.
“There’s so much awareness about birth, but there’s not much conversation going around the process of prematurity, of maybe your child can come at any time,” she says.
Usually, “you’re going to give birth, spend two nights in hospital, get in the car seat and go home but we were there for six weeks, the first time we saw her she was in an incubator, the first time we held her was a week later – it’s nothing you can prepare for. You don’t have a hospital bag, we didn’t have a birthing [plan].”
Despite being unprepared, she says: “I actually really enjoyed giving birth. We were singing musical tunes. I was singing through the pain, singing all the tunes that I love.” Although “you’re in too much pain” to dance, she notes.
“Birth for me was just such a beautiful thing, a rite of passage for something that I wanted to personally achieve.”
And she felt reassured by doctors that her daughter would be fine, although it would be “a long journey”.
She says: “The whole team and the midwife team and the consultants were there every step of the way, they were so communicative, they were so gentle with what they said. They tell you to be patient, because everything takes time – good things take time.”
Seeing her daughter in the NICU, Mabuse had “an overwhelming feeling of love, protectiveness and pride”.
She says: “I saw her and I just felt like, there’s my baby. She’s a strong little girl, this is tough and scary right now for her because she’s not in the womb anymore, but she’s safe and she’s going to be OK.”
Every day Mabuse would sit beside her daughter’s incubator – “I didn’t want to leave the unit at all. I’d be the first one there and the last one to leave,” she says. “It’s one of those things that people don’t know about. You don’t expect it to be so intense.”
“[Premature babies] still have to learn a few things, like blinking, swallowing and sucking – all those things they would learn in the tummy, but in the incubator, so you need to slowly teach them how to do them from scratch. They’re also eating through feeding tubes.”
“I breastfed her the whole time. I did it because I wanted to, but I don’t want other mums to feel pressure because it’s difficult – I have so many friends who are like, my body did not produce it, and it’s not their fault. And the baby has to eat, so fed is best.”
After six long weeks, she was able to take her baby home. “It was the best feeling every, we made it in time for Christmas and felt like our Christmas gift – we will never forget the day we brought her home and we were in the car, my husband and I were so nervous. She was so tiny.”
Premature babies have different milestones than full-term babies and Mabuse says the mums she met in NICU have been a great support. “We made such a close friend group and we’re all celebrating first birthdays now. We always help each other and advise each other and reassure each other. There’s six of us in our WhatsApp group.
“Every premature baby is completely different,” she says, and especially when it comes to the topic of feeding, “usually it’s mums that are feeling bad and approach situations with difficulty, so we’re just really there for each other.”
There’s so many things she’d wish she’d know before having a premature baby though, such as, “this is the nappy you want to use, these are the instruments, whether its a dummy or blanket of clothes, all of that conversation is something you have while you’re in the moment. You’re expecting a term baby, so you have the bedroom and the clothes and diapers – this is just a unique world of its own.
“It’s something that we talk about after it’s happened, and I wish the conversation would get moved to before, to let mothers know – not to worry them – but just to educate them, just to have knowledge, because I had so many questions, and I didn’t know what I was doing.”
For every pack of Pampers nappies and nappy pants purchased in Boots from now to Jan 2 2025, Pampers will donate one premature nappy to UK premature babies in the UK (T&Cs apply).
