Hailey Bieber Reveals the Health Scare That Left Her Unable to Speak at 25

At 25, Hailey Bieber couldn’t speak.

The right side of her face dropped. Her arm went numb. What felt like a surreal, out-of-body moment turned out to be a TIA—aka a mini stroke—that led doctors to discover a previously undiagnosed heart condition she’d been living with her entire life.

Four years later, her body would surprise her again. A pregnancy she didn’t plan combined with a uterine septum that raised miscarriage and preterm risks. An induction that involved a Foley balloon and careful timing of an epidural. A delivery that was fast, followed by bleeding that wasn’t.

On SHE MD, sitting across from host and longtime OBGYN Dr. Thaïs Aliabadi and co-host Mary Alice Haney, Bieber walks through the medical chapters most women only discuss privately: postpartum anxiety, pumping vs. breastfeeding, pelvic floor rehab, and a PMDD diagnosis months after giving birth that made the week before her period feel psychologically unrecognizable.

Below are the highlights from the conversation, adapted from the episode.

Hailey Bieber on Her Health Scare and Postpartum Experience

What did your mini-stroke feel like at 25?

“The whole right side of my arm went numb. I couldn’t speak, like my words were coming out all jumbled. The right side of my face was drooping. It was like a classic stroke symptom, but obviously it’s a transient stroke. That’s why they call it a mini stroke, so the symptoms went away quickly—I would say within 30 minutes to one hour. By the time you kind of come to, you’re a little bit disoriented for sure. You feel like things go back to normal with TIAs. You don’t usually suffer a permanent deficit, to my knowledge.”

Did you know what was happening?

“I didn’t know what was happening. I went to the hospital right away. [They didn’t do anything] because it was a transient stroke. Like I didn’t need a clot buster medication or anything. They did because by the time I got to the hospital, I was talking normal and I was, I was OK. But they did scans right away and they were able to see the dot of where the stroke was on my brain was so tiny, but it was just in the part of my brain that controls your speech center…which is why I couldn’t talk at age 25.”

Was your pregnancy planned?

“It was a surprise…I had a septum in my uterus and Dr. A kept saying, ‘Well, we need to look at this and keep an eye on it before you get pregnant because it could potentially be an issue. I don’t really know. We got to see. I might have to give you a small surgery for it. Not sure.’ And I was like, ‘OK, well, I’m not thinking about getting pregnant right now, so we’ll just cross that bridge when we get there.’ And then, I magically got pregnant.”

How bad was the first trimester?

“I had really bad nausea and morning sickness. They shouldn’t call it morning sickness, like it was all day sickness…So the first 3 months were tough, but I was super personally militant with my pregnancy, like I was like, ‘I’m gonna exercise the whole time. I wanna put my body in the best possible shape for delivery.’ I was approaching it like I was about to run a marathon. I was weight training and doing all this stuff. I was working out the day before I went in for my delivery…I stayed with Pilates, I stayed with weight training, strength training. The only thing that I picked up was prenatal yoga and stretching. I did a lot of stretching, a lot of prenatal yoga. I was like, ‘I’m gonna just like stretch everything and keep everything open, open hips.’”

Let’s talk induction. The Foley balloon?

“I’m not going to lie to anyone listening to this, that sh*t sucks. The Foley balloon is not fun.

It is painful.”

The epidural?

“I did have an epidural, but one thing I do want to say about that is, I would like to try one time without one…When they gave me the epidural, I was 4 centimeters, I think, and I was chilling. Like I was like, I don’t really need it, but the reason they told me to do it then was so that I could rest…I turned it off because I was like, ‘I hate the way this feels. I feel so numb. I feel like a dead fish, I can’t feel my legs and by the time I was pushing, I could move my legs…

…I hated the feeling, and then all of a sudden I remember this one specific moment where it wore off, I turned it back on. It was the craziest. Like the pressure was so crazy. You just don’t know what you’re supposed to feel when it’s the first time you’re having a baby, and I was like, ‘Hold on a second, turn that back on. I cannot feel that.’”

What happened after delivery?

“I pushed the baby out in 44 minutes. I was like, ‘All right, I did it.’ I got him out, and then I couldn’t stop bleeding…I wouldn’t have expected that if like, obviously you go into it being nervous, you know, you hear people hemorrhage and you don’t ever think it’s going to happen to you until like you’re in there and then you just don’t know. I mean, anything can go sideways when you’re having a baby…

…My eyes were glassy and I was just so out of it, so I don’t even really think I knew what was going on at first, and then I saw her face and then the nurses and they were like giving me every medication to clot and nothing was working and they stabbed me in the leg with a thing and then they stabbed me in the leg with another thing and like I started to sense the panic in the room a little bit.”

How was postpartum emotionally?

“I didn’t have postpartum depression, which I’m super grateful for. I had a bit of anxiety, but I think it was like normal anxiety, just like [being] anxious about keeping a baby alive.”

When did PMDD show up?

“I got diagnosed with PMDD probably six or seven months postpartum because I was like, ‘This just feels way more intense than before,’ like the lead up to getting your period. I was like, I’ve always had PMS like everybody does, but this was a lot more mental…That whole week before you’re like, ‘Why does it feel like my whole entire life is gonna end?’ Like I don’t understand. You just have all these swirling thoughts and feelings and just everything feels like the biggest deal in the world and every little thing feels like the biggest deal and then you get your period and you’re like, ‘Oh, I guess everything’s gonna be fine. Like I feel totally normal now.’ So yeah, I was diagnosed with PMDD a couple months postpartum and then it ended up getting better.”

What’s your advice to new moms?

“I think trusting your intuition is the most important thing. I think it becomes heightened when you’re pregnant. I think it becomes heightened when you become a mom. Just think, trust that gut. Whatever it’s telling you, follow it.”

To hear Hailey Bieber’s full conversation about pregnancy, delivery, and PMDD, listen to SHE MD wherever you get your podcasts.

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