Pregnant lady scratching her hands finds viewers spamming her inbox with emergency advice — and it ended up saving both their lives
The internet is said to be a strange place, as it can do both - make someone's day or ruin it. However, for Abbie Herbert, it did something entirely different by saving her newborn baby's life. Famous mum influencer Herbert, like always, was posting everyday moments of her life online with her millions of followers. Little did she know that this time, her fans would act as a lifesaver for her unborn baby. Herbert (@abbiehrbert_), who was 37 weeks pregnant, posted a Christmas-themed video on Instagram, in which the viewers noticed her repeatedly scratching her hands. She posted two videos, sharing how comments from her followers saved her and her baby from a very "dangerous situation" as she went through an emergency C-section two days later.
In the first video, she is seen cradling her newborn son, with the overlay text, which reads, "Me after posting a vlog scratching my hands, and the internet told me to tell my doctor, and I ended up having an emergency C-section 2 days later." Later, in the second video, she explained exactly how social media "saved" her son. In the video, she shared that she casually decided to document the end of her pregnancy, and that's exactly when her followers noticed something strange in the vlogs.
"In the first or second vlogs, I included a clip where I'm just scratching my hands. And then I started seeing comments of people saying if my hands are itchy and my feet are itchy, I need to let my doctor know immediately," she said. Herbert, however, initially ignored the comments because it was severely itchy and felt normal to her. However, a few days later, after one of her photo shoots, she decided to click a photo of her hand and sent it to her doctor. "I looked at my hand. I had this rash on both of my palms. I was not itchy whatsoever," she added. Her doctor immediately called her and asked for a blood test.
"I got a notification that my lab results were back. When I clicked on it, my Cholestasis levels were extremely high. And at 6 pm, I got a call from my doctor telling me to get to the hospital now because I'm about to have this baby today. The fact that I wasn't extremely itchy, didn't have that extreme itch, but how high my levels were, they were like, you have someone watching over you because that is a true miracle," she explained. According to the Cleveland Clinic, Cholestasis of pregnancy is a liver disease that can develop in late pregnancy and go away after the baby is born. It's main symptom is severe itching.
Sharing how emotional she got after knowing the fact that her followers actually noticed what she never paid attention to, Abbie said, "I would have never gotten checked. And the fact that you guys saw that, like, I never really called it out. Makes me so emotional because I don't even want to think about what could have happened if I hadn't gone to get blood work."
What followed was an outpouring of support from her followers, many of whom shared similar experiences in the comments, who had the same condition during their pregnancy. @officiallyquigley, who shared she had the same condition, commented, "I had Cholestasis too! My feet were itchy! So itchy. I told my doctor right away because she warned me of this, and that’s why I had max early! Thanks for spreading the word, mama!" @kelliestecher wrote, "Thank you for bringing awareness to this! You said it great." "I had it too with my second son. I didn’t know what it was until I had it, and it was thanks to my followers, too. I was induced at 36 weeks… So glad everything turned out for the best," shared @karlaceliss.
"As soon as you said how itchy you were, I knew it was cholestasis!!! It can come on so quickly. I’m so glad you were checked out! My son was born at 32 weeks because of it! When some midwives tried to tell me my itchiness was hay fever," commented @pennyandcocollections.
You can follow Abbie Herbert (@abbieherbert_) on Instagram for more lifestyle content.