Published: June 24, 2026 | Updated: June 25, 2026
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
When Kayleigh Hughes arrived at the emergency department, she thought she was having another flare-up of her gastroparesis — the same relentless abdominal pain and nausea she had been managing for years due to chronic digestive conditions. She had no idea she was about to deliver her daughter nearly three months early.
Kayleigh, 28, a server from Greater Louisville, lives with a group of complex gastrointestinal conditions: gastroparesis, cyclic vomiting syndrome (CVS) and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). She also has no gallbladder, the tiny organ that sits next to the liver and releases bile to help in digestion and fat absorption. Her gallbladder was removed in an emergency surgery in December 2016 after a bout with gallstones, a procedure she believes triggered the gastroparesis that followed. Over the years, her conditions have been severe enough to require six jejunostomies (J-tubes for bypassing the stomach for nutrition), home health care nurses and IV support at home. At her worst, she lost 56 pounds.
For Kayleigh, pregnancy was always going to be complicated. The day she found out she was expecting, her care team immediately told her she would be considered to have a high-risk pregnancy. What no one could have anticipated was just how quickly — and how dangerously — things would unfold.
Gastroparesis, which literally means “stomach paralysis,” occurs when the stomach cannot empty itself properly. In Kayleigh’s case, the pain is severe.
“Sometimes it hurts so much that I’m just folded in half like a laptop,” she said.
Add to that CVS, which causes recurring, unpredictable bouts of intense nausea and vomiting, and GERD, which compounds the discomfort, and it becomes clear how difficult distinguishing pregnancy symptoms from her baseline was going to be.
Hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) — severe, persistent nausea and vomiting during pregnancy — was added to her diagnoses when she became pregnant. But the symptoms of HG overlap substantially with CVS and gastroparesis. Kayleigh also has irregular menstrual cycles, sometimes going 60 to 70 days without a period, which meant she did not realize she was pregnant until relatively late.
“There was almost no way of knowing,” she said. “It was just my usual symptoms.”
Her medication regimen required repeated adjustment throughout the pregnancy. Metoclopramide (Reglan), a cornerstone of her gastroparesis management, had to be discontinued after she developed an allergic reaction — something that had never happened before. Her care team cycled through three or four anti-nausea medications at a time, searching for combinations that would offer some relief without risk to the baby. Opioid analgesics she relied on for pain management could not be used in the same way during pregnancy, requiring further adjusting of medicines.
Nutrition was an ongoing battle. Because gastroparesis affects the stomach’s ability to absorb nutrients properly, Kayleigh worked to eat small, frequent meals — every two hours in early pregnancy, and eventually every 30 minutes toward the end to ensure her daughter was getting adequate nourishment. She also coped with those demands while still working in restaurant management — on her feet for long hours — before eventually having to stop.
Each of Kayleigh’s conditions carried implications for how her baby would develop, so prenatal care was extremely important.
Gastroparesis can block maternal nutrition significantly, and the developing baby depends entirely on what the mother can absorb. When the mom’s stomach cannot empty at a normal rate, it affects calorie and micronutrient absorption. Chronic malnutrition during pregnancy is associated low fetal growth, low birth weight and preterm birth.
CVS compounds nutritional risk by causing severe vomiting that leads to dehydration and electrolyte imbalances — both of which can trigger preterm contractions and stress the placenta. GERD further interferes with nutrition for mom and baby.
HG amplifies all of the above. Research has associated HG with increased risk of low birth weight, small-for-gestational-age infants and, in severe cases, preterm delivery.
And then there was preeclampsia — a condition Kayleigh did not know she had until she was already in crisis.
Kayleigh was 29 weeks and 3 days pregnant when she went to a New Albany, Indiana, hospital — certain she was having a gastroparesis flare. She had been unable to keep anything down for nearly a full day. The abdominal pain was severe, but it always was. What she did not know was that she was also having contractions.
“When they told me they were watching my contractions on a screen, I had no idea,” she said. “I genuinely thought it was my regular abdominal pain.”
The diagnosis: preeclampsia. It is a condition marked by high blood pressure and signs of organ damage — most often to the liver and kidneys — that can rapidly become life-threatening for both mother and baby if not managed immediately. Severe preeclampsia can progress to eclampsia, characterized by seizures and other serious complications.
The hospital where Kayleigh was a patient does not deliver babies born before 32 weeks of gestation. At only 29 weeks, Kayleigh needed a hospital that could manage both a critically ill mother and an extremely premature newborn. On May 2, she was transferred across the Ohio River by ambulance to Norton Hospital in downtown Louisville, Kentucky.
Kayleigh arrived at Norton Hospital on the evening of May 3, 2025. She met with some of the Norton Children’s Maternal-Fetal Medicine team. The next morning, around 10:30 a.m., she was told she needed an emergency cesarean section.
Her daughter, Wrenleigh, “Wren” for short — was born 10 weeks and 4 days early, with a due date of July 16. She weighed 2 pounds, 11 ounces.
Coincidentally, Kayleigh’s boyfriend, Chase, had been admitted to the hospital in New Albany for kidney stones. He signed out against medical advice to make it to Louisville in time for Wren’s birth. The surgical team waited an extra 20 minutes for him to arrive before the cesarean section (C-section) delivery began.
“I was awake for the C-section,” Kayleigh said. “They just flashed [Wren] at me for a second and then ran her out of the room. I just wanted to make sure my baby was OK. I just wanted to hold her.”
Managing Kayleigh’s postoperative care added another layer of complexity. Her chronic pain and gastrointestinal conditions required a regimen for pain management and controlling vomiting.
Wren was admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Norton Children’s Hospital, where she would spend the next 56 days. Premature infants born at 29 weeks face a range of potential complications, including respiratory distress, jaundice, feeding difficulties and developmental challenges.
Wren had jaundice, which was treated. She also experienced episodes of bradycardia — sudden drops in heart rate — in the early weeks.
“Watching the monitors, hearing everything beep all the time, whether I was next to her or through the phone as the nurses relayed everything back to me — that was pretty worrisome,” Kayleigh said.
Kayleigh and Chase were at the NICU nearly every day for the first several weeks, staying for most of the day.
“She always had somebody,” Kayleigh said.
Despite being born nearly three months early to a mother managing severe chronic illness and a complicated pregnancy, Wren passed every developmental milestone and specialist evaluation. She was discharged two weeks earlier than expected.
“She’s passed all her tests with flying colors,” Kayleigh said. “No doctors had any worries. She extremely, extremely lucked out. She’s a big, strong girl now.”
In spring 2026, Wren celebrated her first birthday, weighing well over 15 pounds.
Kayleigh is not one to minimize what she went through. Managing gastroparesis, CVS and GERD alongside a high-risk pregnancy, severe vomiting, preterm labor and preeclampsia demands close coordination by a care team with expertise. She knows that.
What she talks about most, though, is how the Norton Hospital team made her feel.
“The bedside manner, the empathy — every single nurse, doctor, even the staff in the cafeteria — it was completely unmatched,” she said. “I felt like if I went to another hospital, they wouldn’t have been as empathetic or as caring.”
She remembers a nurse named Christie on the mother-baby unit with particular clarity.
“I had the chance to actually get to know her,” Kayleigh said. “She did absolutely amazing.”
The NICU team’s willingness to demonstrate breastfeeding techniques and answer every question without hesitation stood out as well.
“They won’t leave you to figure it out on your own,” she said.
When asked what she would say to another high-risk pregnancy patient weighing options for care, Kayleigh’s answer was clear.
“Definitely go to Norton. Out of all the specialists and doctors I dealt with throughout my pregnancy, Norton’s was hands down the best. If I have a second child, that’s definitely where I am going.”