NEED TO KNOW
- An Australian influencer is set to undergo open-heart surgery due to an infection and “leak” in her mitral valve
- Leah Jay Ramsey’s health scare comes just days after she and her husband, Michael, announced they were set to welcome their second baby
- In an Instagram post, Michael shared that the surgery posed “significant” risks for the baby
An influencer is set to undergo open-heart surgery just days after she and her husband announced they were expecting their second baby.
On Wednesday, Jan. 28, Strong Pilates co-founder, Michael Ramsey, confirmed in an Instagram post that his wife, Leah Jay — an Australian content creator living in Austin, Texas — would need open-heart surgery after a heart scan showed her mitral valve was “leaking,” due to an infection.
Per the Cleveland Clinic, the “mitral valve sits between your upper and lower left heart chambers. It opens to let blood flow from your left atrium to your left ventricle.”
“When it closes, it prevents blood from moving backward. Sometimes, your mitral valve doesn’t work right because it’s too narrow or leaky. This can make your heart work harder to pump blood to your body,” the site adds.
Michael — who already shares son Reeves, 3, with Leah — wrote in Wednesday’s update, “They will likely need to replace the valve with a mechanical valve but will try to save it if possible.”
He said that heart surgery “could be as early as Friday [Jan. 30]” or “as late as Monday [Feb. 2],” adding, “We’ve been told there are significant risks for the baby, but Leah is our main priority right now.”
“If all goes well, she could be out of the hospital 4-5 days post surgery. Leah is doing well all things considered, taking each step in her stride and being brave through the process,” Michael shared.
The update came after Leah revealed that the last few weeks had been “the scariest and most eye-opening” of her life as she shared photos from her time in the hospital on Instagram.
“What started as a swollen, painful leg turned into emergency surgery to remove a blood clot. From there, doctors discovered an infection in my heart that may have been sitting in my body for close to a year — quietly causing inflammation, sickness, and eventually sending a clot down into my leg,” she wrote.
Leah, who regularly posts about her lifestyle and life as a mom, said, “Suddenly everything makes sense.” Revealing she’d been experiencing symptoms including cellulitis, swollen limbs, night sweats, exhaustion, repeated infections, and more.
Leah said that she’d put the nausea down to pregnancy. “I kept thinking it was just bad luck, pregnancy symptoms, or that I needed to push through it. But my body was trying to tell me something much bigger,” her post added.
The influencer continued, “This has been terrifying, but also clarifying. I’m grateful to finally have answers. Grateful for incredible doctors. And grateful that this was caught before something even worse happened.”
She ended her post on a lighter note, writing, “Side note; I’m terrified to know what the hospital bill is going to be 😵💫”
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The health scare comes after Leah and Michael announced they were expecting another baby in an Instagram post on Jan. 18. The couple shared a photo of Leah standing in front of Michael displaying her baby bump in a gray crop top and black trousers, while Michael beamed as he looked down at her belly.
A second photo showed Reeves asleep in a bed holding onto a sonogram image. “The sequel #julybaby,” Leah captioned the post.
PEOPLE has attempted to reach out to Michael Ramsey for an update on Leah and her operation but did not immediately receive a response.
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