Gwyneth Paltrow has revealed that she almost died giving birth to her oldest child after needing an emergency caesarean.

The Sliding Doors star, 49, shares daughter Apple, 17, and son Moses, 15, with ex-husband and Cold Play front man, Chris Martin, 44.

Appearing on an episode of podcast the Armchair Expert, she recalled: “My daughter was an emergency. It was crazy; we almost died. It was like, not good.

“Anyway, there’s a big scar across your body and you’re like, ‘Oh wow, that didn’t used to be there.’

“And it’s not that it’s bad, or you want to judge it, but you’re just like, ‘Oh, my god’.”

The Goop founder also said how she’s glad that Instagram didn’t exist when she was a new mother, explaining: “Now it’s like if I see someone, ‘Oh, I just gave birth two weeks ago, and I have a completely washboard stomach,’ and I’m like, ‘Wow, that’s not what I [looked like]’

“And like, great, more power to the lady with the washboard [abs], but that is totally the exception.”

She continued: “And then now we’re being fed all of these other images of what we’re supposed to look like all the time - babies, no babies, whatever.”