At almost 28 weeks pregnant, 30-year-old Michelle Berndt of Nashua, N.H., was having a complication-free pregnancy. Feeling great, eating right and ensuring time for physical activity, Berndt and her husband were anxiously awaiting the birth of their first child. With less than one week until her next routine prenatal examination, Berndt tried to ignore the signs that something might not be quite right. "I assumed my sudden weight gain was just part of being pregnant and that my chest pain was a bad case of indigestion," she says.

After almost a day of progressively increasing chest pain and difficulty breathing, Berndt relented and agreed to go to the emergency room. "I felt silly," she says. "I thought I should be able to tolerate some heartburn or indigestion."

With no history of high blood pressure or preeclampsia, being diagnosed with Hemolysis, Elevated Liver, Low Platelet, or HELLP, syndrome, Berndt and her husband found themselves in a situation they were completely unaware of and unprepared for. Devastated and terrified for the health and safety of both Michelle and their unborn child, the Berndts were reeling from the tests and medication being administered.

They contemplated trying to speed up her delivery with Pitocin. Berndt's condition continued to deteriorate and she and her husband were told she needed to have an emergency C-section. "I couldn't believe that Michelle had developed such a serious complication that we knew nothing about," says Bill Berndt.

HELLP syndrome is a placental disease that is considered to be a variant of the complication preeclampsia. HELLP occurs when vasospasms occur in the body and blood vessels act like a muscle relaxing and contracting. Blood passes through the relaxing and contracting veins, causing damage to a special lining in the veins. As damage occurs, red blood cells and platelets try to heal the damage and create clots over the damage. The clots grow and begin to stress the body as it works to push the blood past this damage. HELLP affects mainly the liver because it is deprived of oxygen due to the clots.

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