A HAMPSHIRE television star suffered from post-traumatic stress following a near-fatal Caesarean section, she has revealed.

Britain’s Got Talent judge Amanda Holden, who grew up in Bishop’s Waltham, near Winchester, almost died during the birth of second daughter Hollie Rose Hughes in January 2012 and compared the experience to being in a war.

Ms Holden, married to record producer Chris Hughes, needed the operation due to a low-lying placenta but haemorrhaged and ruptured an artery when the placenta was removed. She lost several pints of blood and her heart stopped for 40 seconds.

The former Cutting It and Wild at Heart star said she was told she was suffering from the syndrome during therapy after she began taking any illness very seriously, even if it was just a cough.

Ms Holden has an older daughter, eight-year-old Lexi, but also suffered a miscarriage in 2010 and then had a stillborn son, Theo, a year later.