Louise Thompson marked another emotional milestone in her maternity reform campaign on Wednesday. The former Made In Chelsea star, 35, almost died while giving birth to her son, Leo, four, in 2021 following an emergency caesarean.After Leo’s birth, she went on to suffer with PTSD and post-natal anxiety due to her near-death experience and has since been diagnosed with Lupus, Asherman’s syndrome, suffered a second haemorrhage, and has also had a stoma bag fitted.Louise has since become a campaigner for better maternity care in the UK, and in January launched a petition to call for the appointment of a maternity commissioner. Last week Baroness Amos formally recommended the appointment in her report on maternity and neonatal services, a major milestone in the campaign. And on Wednesday Louise handed her petition, which has over 167k signatures, along with personal letters from affected families to 10 Downing Street as she promised that ‘we’ll keep pushing to get a deadline for the appointment of the commissioner.’ Louise Thompson marked another emotional milestone in her maternity reform campaign on Wednesday Louise handed her petition, which has over 167k signatures, along with personal letters from affected families to 10 Downing Street as she promised that ‘we’ll keep pushing’Sharing a video of the moment she handed over the petition, Louise told her Instagram followers that she had had ‘a huge release of emotion’ after months of work. ‘Have held it together all week, but creating this and re-watching it over and over again to remind myself that this is actually real and that this day really happened is making me cry and it’s a huge release,’ she explained.’I feel like I just woke up from the biggest haze. I feel like centuries worth of trauma (other people’s and my own) are pouring out of these tiny little tear ducts and I should sleep very well tonight.”I feel emotional because I’m really just a normal girl whose life got totally torn apart one day and I never thought I’d get back to a normal life let alone achieving things like this,’ Louise continued. ‘I wanted to say the BIGGEST thank you for all the brave families who emailed us letters sharing your stories so that we could take them with us.”This was really important to me and my intimate and brilliant team. We printed them all and put them in this black box (which just so happened to match the shiny black door) so you could be part of this mega mission. I am merely a mouthpiece for all of you out there.”I think I’m still a little in shock because I’ve realised this isn’t actually the end of the mission. It’s only just the beginning. s***. There is a lot of work to do. Love you all x’ The former Made In Chelsea star, 35, almost died while giving birth to her son, Leo, four, in 2021 following an emergency caesarean On the latest episode of her He Said, She Said podcast with partner Ryan Libbey, Louise spoke about the day she found out a maternity commissioner will be appointed, describing it as a ‘historic moment’. A proud Ryan pointed out that ‘we’ve been speaking about your hopes and ambitions to crack this maternity scandal and be part of this appointing someone who can take responsibility and better the care and the continuity and everything for women and babies and families… you’ve now had a historical victory.”A historic moment is actually somewhat true because there has never been a statutory maternal maternity and neonatal commissioner before ever in the history,’ Louise replied. ‘So it is a huge change to bring somebody in that is party neutral who can help advise and sit on that task force with the health secretary.Earlier this month Louise spoke about her own birth experience in light of the campaign update, explaining how she was left so traumatised that she could only spend five minutes a day with her son in the months after his birth.’I found it painful and difficult to engage with him in those early moments – he was associated with what had happened, which was hard for me to process,’ she told The Telegraph. ‘His crying was incredibly triggering to me, which sent me into a dissociative state’, she added. Louise has since become a campaigner for better maternity care in the UK, and in January launched a petition to call for the appointment of a maternity commissioner Louise says she was denied an elective C-section and recommended a home birth despite her concerns over her small frame and her baby’s size, as measured in the growth scans. During labour, her son proved unable to fit through her pelvis, and she had to undergo an emergency C-section. An artery was nicked during the surgery and she had a haemorrhage, losing 75 per cent of her blood as doctors battled for four hours to save her life.Then, just days after being sent home from the hospital with Leo she haemorrhaged again.Over the course of several weeks in hospital Louise experienced more horrific haemorrhages as well as sepsis and pneumonia, with the physical and emotional toll leading her to miss precious bonding time with her son. Once she was finally back home in the London house she shares with Leo and Ryan, Louise said ‘I sat in that garden for eight hours at a time during my recovery, in the middle of winter, wearing a massive coat, staring into space.”I couldn’t be inside with anybody. Not even my child. I was really bad. I couldn’t think… That, for me, was what death looked like.’