Barbie Hsu: 'I stopped breathing right after giving birth to my son'

Pregnancy and childbirth can be life-threatening business for both mother and baby.

Taiwanese actress and host Barbie Hsu revealed she nearly died when she delivered her son Hsi-lin four years ago.

In a recent interview on Chinese talkshow directly translated as After I Became A Mum, the 43-year-old, who is married to Chinese entrepreneur Wang Xiaofei, said her second pregnancy was a gift from god.

She was ecstatic but also worried because of her advanced maternal age. Her daughter Hsi-yueh, nicknamed Yueh'er, was two years old then.

Barbie recounted: "Right after I gave birth to my son, I stopped breathing and was taken to the intensive care unit. At that time, the medical team didn't know the cause, if it was a reaction to the anaesthetic or something else."

She didn't go into details in the video interview, but while she later regained some consciousness, she was not out of the woods yet.

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She remembered wanting to see her daughter. Her doctor made an exception and allowed Barbie's mother to carry Yueh'er to the hospital room.

"I could hardly keep my eyes open and everything was a blur," she said. "But once I saw Yueh'er, my eyes lit up immediately. I felt it was my daughter who pulled me back from the brink of death."

Barbie added she wasn't sure at that moment if she was going to live.

"A mother needs to have a very strong heart. Is motherhood worth it? It's enough that I feel so," she concluded.

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kwokkarpeng@asiaone.com