Sofia Richie, the youngest daughter of singer-songwriter Lionel Richie, opened up about her pregnancy and postpartum experience after giving birth to her first child, Eloise, in May.
“I had a great pregnancy up until about 32 weeks,” Richie told co-hosts Dr. Thais Aliabadi, of whom Richie is a patient, and Mary Alice Haney, before sharing what she texted Aliabadi one morning, “Hey, I woke up and I’m really tired today. My back really hurts. I feel a little crampy.”
“And I really thought it was going to be another one of those like, ‘Yeah, babe, that’s pregnancy. You’re going to be fine, but you can come in if you want me to check you,’ type situations,” she said.
Instead, Richie recalls Dr. Aliabadi saying, “‘You know what? Actually, I think you should go see the fetal specialist to monitor, to make sure that everything’s okay, and then you'll go home. It’s not a big deal.’ Thank God she said that.”
The 26-year-old followed her doctor’s advice and went to the hospital, where she was informed that she was in active labor weeks ahead of the usual timeframe.
“They hooked me up to the monitor, and they were like, ‘You’re in active labor,’” she said, noting that she was “really terrified.”
Richie’s stay at the hospital went from a few hours to six days, where she was monitored and given IV fluids. After the sixth day, the mother-to-be had enough.
“I was begging. I was like, ‘Please, please let me go home.’ And she was like, ‘You can go home, but you’re on bed rest. We have to monitor you,’” Richie explained. “So that’s what I did. It was kind of a waiting game from there.”
Richie was then released from the hospital and went on bed rest, where she was contracting for six weeks until being “induced at 38 weeks.”
“I had a fantastic delivery,” she said before adding that it was an “intense” process.
Postpartum Preeclampsia
However, two days after delivering her newborn daughter, the 26-year-old started to feel sick, and her body began to swell.“I went home and I blew up like a balloon. Quite literally, just swelled,” she said. “I felt very ill ... so she [Aliabadi] sent over her wonderful nurse, and my blood pressure was 165 over 103, which is like … [very high].”
Aliabadi told Richie it was postpartum preeclampsia.
“The hardest thing I ever had to do, I think literally, was leave my daughter two days postpartum. It was horrendous. I actually hid in the closet and cried,” she said. “My poor husband was like, ‘I have to get you to the hospital because Dr. A’s saying it’s just not safe. It’s not safe that you’re home.’ So I spent 24 hours in the hospital and it was really, really, really hard.”
Richie married record label executive Elliot Grainge, 30, in 2023.
The model said that having “mom guilt” was the reason for her devastation.
“My mom guilt kicked in. I don’t know why, from the second Eloise was born, I was like, ‘I can’t miss an awake time. I can’t miss a moment. I don’t want someone else taking care of my kid.’”
Three months after welcoming her first child, Richie is “finally really starting to feel myself again” and incorporating daily exercise into her routine. Sharing a word of advice, the new mother wished she “enjoyed the moment” of being pregnant.
“When my pregnancy was over, I was like, ‘I miss that,’” she shared. “It’s such an intimate moment being able to share one space with your child that you never get back. Your kid comes out, and you share your kid with everyone, which is magical, but that moment with your child is so special.”
