A mother has spoken out about her ordeal after being left covered in itchy blisters as a result of an allergic reaction to her own baby.
WARNING: Graphic Content
32-year-old Fiona Hooker from Basingstoke, UK, was in for a big shock after “unbearable red itchy plaques” erupted all over her body when she was 31 weeks pregnant.
Following several trips to the hospital, Fiona was told by her doctors that she was suffering from an incredibly rare autoimmune disease known as Pemphigoid Gestationis that made her allergic to her own child.
As Fiona’s pregnancy progressed, so did her unbearable condition and she was forced to resort to steroid creams for relief.
“I got a few tiny, really itchy marks around my belly button that felt like nettle stings. I went to the doctors after a few days because it was getting more and more itchy and unbearable,” the mom recalled.
“They gave me some steroid creams which didn’t really touch it and it was getting bigger – my belly was covered in red, itchy plaques.
“It was the third GP I went to see that said it looked like the condition Pemphigoid Gestationis and he referred me to a dermatologist who gave me the strongest steroid cream you can get. It was like I was allergic to my own baby.”
Fiona added: “By 35 weeks I took myself to A&E because I couldn’t bear it and nothing was touching it. They gave me four days of oral steroids, which really helped it calm down.
“But two days before I was due to give birth it started to get unbearable again and 24 hours after I’d given birth it just exploded and turned into blisters.
“If I scratched it, it felt good and temporarily took the itch away but obviously I was removing the blisters and skin so then I was left with raw, really painful skin and the blisters just came back on top of that.”
As the mother admitted, she wasn’t really able to enjoy the newborn stage of her second child due to her unbearable condition.
She also revealed that she didn’t suffer any allergic reaction during her first pregnancy, whereas it must have been the baby’s DNA that caused an unwanted reaction in her body.
“They think it might be to do with the baby – something in the father’s DNA triggers the placenta to start attacking a protein which is also in the skin, so my body was attacking my skin,” she explained.
“My son must have a gene from his dad that my daughter got me from instead because I didn’t have it with my first pregnancy.”
Though the mother-of-two has since the ordeal gotten better, she admitted being put off from getting pregnant again “especially because the research says it will come on earlier and worse.”
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