‘Doctors saved my life’: Missy Bo Kearns on her harrowing miscarriage | OneFootball

Missy Bo Kearns has spoken publicly about a miscarriage that led to sepsis and emergency surgery earlier this season, with the Aston Villa Women midfielder saying club and hospital doctors saved her life.

The 25-year-old told of becoming seriously ill on 18 March after initially thinking her shaking and 42C temperature were part of pregnancy symptoms. Villa doctor Dr Jodie Blackadder-Weinstein urged her to get to hospital immediately, where she was diagnosed with a miscarriage and sepsis and spent four days being treated.

Kearns had announced her pregnancy just over two weeks before sharing the loss. Her account has brought fresh focus to Women’s Health and Player Wellbeing in elite football, with WSL players increasingly speaking more openly about issues that have too often gone unspoken.

Kearns said: “It was one of the biggest shocks of my life. I’d literally been doing pilates and gym an hour before, and my whole life just changed like that.”

She added: “People might not realise how much of a toll it actually has on someone. Obviously, everyone knows how hard it must be to lose a child, but because of the highs of finding out you’re pregnant, and the stress of being pregnant, and like, the worries of getting past the 12-week mark, it’s so stressful, even though it’s so exciting. To then have that crash, and then suddenly you’re not pregnant, and your hormones change, your symptoms start to go, like overnight, it’s a different type of grief.”

And she went on: “People don’t tell people that they’ve been through it. They suffer in silence, and I just hope that people may not suffer in silence now, knowing that, like I’m here, if anyone wants to speak, there are charities like Tommy’s and so many other charities if anyone needs them.”

Kearns has been absent from Aston Villa Women duty since early March, with her return to training only recent as she continues her recovery under close medical supervision. In the middle of a season that has also kept the spotlight on wider WSL injury and medical issues, Villa have backed her through the process.

The broader club context at Villa has shifted plenty this year too, on and off the pitch, with Aston Villa’s wider off-field picture also under scrutiny. Kearns, who joined from Liverpool in 2023, has become an important midfield presence when available.

Missy Bo Kearns: Doctors probably saved my life

She said: “I’m so thankful for the doctors here at Villa, they probably saved my life because I had sepsis, and while having that, I wasn’t even thinking about the sepsis, it was: ‘I’ve lost my child.’”

She added: “You actually feel like you’re the only person it’s ever happened to. But really, it’s so common, and that’s why I think it’s important that the message is out there.”

Kearns also explained that the emotional impact has grown as normal life has resumed. “Being back at Villa and getting back to normal life is when it starts to feel real,” she said in coverage first reported by The Guardian and discussed further in her ITV interview.

Her story comes in a season where player health has remained a major talking point across the league, whether through long-term injuries or other absences, as seen with Ella Toone’s own recent return. In that sense, Kearns’ openness adds another important conversation around support, care and standards in the women’s game.

Photo by Anastasia Shuraeva on Pexels

Kearns is now targeting a full return and says her football ambitions have not changed. “My plan while I was pregnant was to make the World Cup squad, and that’s not changed … I’ve realised there’s more to life than football, but now I’m going to enjoy every minute of football like it’s my last because it could have been.”