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When Your Brain Goes Haywire And Doctors Are At A Loss

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Hello, another warning this week. If you are pregnant, or thinking about getting pregnant, you probably will not want to read this. If you are a new parent, I'm pretty sure you don't want to read this, especially if you are postpartum.

If you know someone who is pregnant or is a new mom/dad, under no circumstances should you send this episode to them, because that will make you a monster.

Take me to the kittens!

Redditor Stephanie posted to the r/BabyBumps subreddit a few months ago about her extremely unusual pregnancy.

She hit the third trimester and suddenly everything started going wrong. She couldn't sleep. She got restless leg syndrome. And she started hallucinating.

Her neurologist, Dr. Joanna O'Leary, talked to Ben and Amory on the podcast. She's still not sure what happened to Stephanie. Her best guess at this point is autoimmune encephalitis — a rare, mysterious disease in which antibodies inexplicably start attacking the brain.

Stephanie and her baby girl, and her husband, are doing great. Her relationship with her husband is solid after so many months of upheaval. And the baby is almost 8 months old and she's sleeping through the night (Ed. Note: Nice work, baby).

Honestly, if anyone deserves to have a baby who sleeps well, it's Stephanie.


"To Ashes," Digital, 600x900px (Elise Wong)
"To Ashes," Digital, 600x900px (Elise Wong)

Thanks to Redditor Elise Wong for her artwork in this week's episode, "To Ashes." You can follow her on Instagram here.

Headshot of Meghan B. Kelly

Meghan B. Kelly Multi-platform Editor
Meghan is the multi-platform editor for WBUR.

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