Stacey Solomon opens up about the traumatic birth of her first son

Stacey Solomon has opened up about the 'traumatic birth' she went through with her first son, and recalled the way that she felt totally unprepared for the experience.

The Dagenham-born star talked openly and candidly on today's Loose Women about how childbirth left her 'furious'.

'[Not sugar coating childbirth] is something I feel really strongly about,' said Stacey. 'My first childbirth was a traumatic one.'

The 27-year old admitted: 'I was really young, just 18 years old at the time.'

'But I remember that I was furious at every woman in my family for telling me how childbirth was "painful but amazing" and that I would forget about the pain.'

Continuing, the mum-of-two said: 'Now, I don't want to scare women, I mean I did it again, but I was devastated afterwards. I wasn't given the proper run through of what would happen.'

Mum to sons Zachary and Leighton, Stacey confessed that she didn't even know that you give birth to the placenta too.

'No one told me about the placenta thing, that was a surprise when it came out of me - I was mortified!'

Stacey remembered that she 'had a full arm up me, ripping that baby out.'

To which, fellow LW panellist, Kaye Adams asked gently: 'Do we think rips the right word?'

'Well yeah they weren't gently coaxing it out!' Stacey replied, before going on to exclaim that she wasn't told about stitches either.

'I think it's so important that we speak about our experiences truthfully,' she said to a round of applause.

Stacey admitted that she tried to find out, she asked everyone all the women in her family, but was told "would we do it over again if it was that bad&".

Looking at the audience, Stacey said: 'Well it WAS that bad, for me. It's not about scaring people it's about educating. I think people should come forward if it was traumatic. Just be honest about it.'

The topic of conversation caused quite a stir on Twitter too, with many in agreement with the 'let's be honest' approach: 'I wish somebody had warned me about the pressure felt in ya back bum during childbirth was totally unexpected,' one said.

Another commented: 'Love this talk about childbirth! People need to be more aware of what can happen when giving birth.'

But some viewers were left flummoxed as to how people don't know about the labour pains: 'Nobody thinks childbirth experience is like a spa treatment anyway. Poor pregnant women watching Stacey talking about birth,' said one, with another posting: 'I don't understand how you can't know that giving birth is going to be slightly traumatic.'