Stop The Presses!

Jennifer Lopez Recalls “Panicking” Over Baby Emme’s Health Scare

By | Stop The Presses! – Mon, Dec 19, 2011 12:00 PM EST

photo: Us WeeklyIt's every new parent's nightmare.

Days after welcoming twins Emme and Max in February 2008, Jennifer Lopez discovered a mysterious lump on her little girl's head.

"I just remember that feeling, 'If something is wrong with that baby . .  I'm gonna die,'" Lopez, 42, tells CNN's Alina Cho in "Big Stars Big Giving," (in a quote excerpted by the New York Post) a special airing next weekend.

PHOTOS: How Max and Emme have grown up

The singer, actress and American Idol judge admits in the interview that she and husband Marc Anthony were initially at a complete loss.

"I remember looking at Marcand 'We should call the doctor' . . . I started panicking a little bit." Anthony, 43 (they announced their split this past July) was "panicking too," she recalls.

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"We were thinking, 'Did somebody drop her when we weren't looking? . . . I just remember looking at him and saying if this baby, if Emme's not going to be OK . . . I'm not going to be OK."

PHOTOS: Jennifer and Marc, the way they were

Latin crooner Anthony wasn't any calmer, she reveals. "He's like, 'I'm not going to be OK. None of us are going to be OK."

The duo then rushed little Emme to the hospital. "Luckily for us, it turned out OK," she reports.

But the scare inspired action in the star. "I was (thinking) like what if I didn't have that? What if I didn't have access to great health care?" she ponders. "What if I was a mom just sitting there and there was something wrong with my baby and there was nothing I could do about it?"

PHOTOS: Celeb health scares

The superstar couple then founded the Maribel Foundation -- named after Anthony's sister Maribel, who died of brain cancer at age 8 -- to provide pediatric care to those in need.

More on Jennifer Lopez

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