Pregnant Pittsburgh creator’s viewers, her mom and ChatGPT all told her to get her itchy palms checked, and soon her doctor sent her to the hospital

Abbie and Josh Herbert built their TikTok audience on pranks and family videos, and Abbie kept filming late into her third pregnancy. In one of her first Vlogmas installments, she absently scratched her palms on camera. Viewers flagged the habit as a possible sign of cholestasis, and the tip led to an urgent C-section, according to Today.

“Okay, so I noticed you scratching the palms of your hands a lot in that video,” one viewer wrote, before urging her to ask her doctor for a bile acid test. Herbert, a 29-year-old content creator in Pittsburgh with more than 10 million followers, figured her skin was stretching. Having already been through two pregnancies, she didn’t think much of it.

“I was like, I know everything. This is nothing new,” Abbie Herbert told the outlet. She looked up cholestasis anyway but felt her itching wasn’t as severe as the cases described online. Still, both her mother and ChatGPT advised her to get checked just in case.

A rash on her palms finally got her to call the doctor

Herbert eventually scratched hard enough to leave a rash and broken blood vessels on her hands, and after a photoshoot, she contacted her doctor. She ended up having bloodwork done just in case. The first results came back within a few hours and looked normal, so she told herself she was overreacting with 10 days still to go.

The bile acid results arrived two days later, and they were abnormal. Herbert said she saw the notification at 4 a.m. and looked right away, and her doctor called within about 10 minutes. Her levels were “almost double what they should have been,” Dr. Ron Cypher, her OB-GYN with Allegheny Health Network, told the outlet.

Herbert delivered her son, Rocky Blue, by urgent C-section that same day, and he was born healthy. She later told a commenter the procedure counted as an emergency as her levels were so high. However, she said things calmed down once it became clear the baby was not in distress, and he arrived within the hour.

Herbert credited her comment section in a TikTok shortly after the birth, saying social media saved her son from a very serious and very dangerous situation. Other viewers had echoed the first warning under her vlogs, with one urging her to “mention hand itchiness/rash to your doc.”

Most pregnancy itching is harmless, which is why cholestasis is so easy to miss

Up to 25% of pregnant women develop itching, yet most of them do not have cholestasis, per a review in OBG Management. Cholestasis affects roughly 0.5% to 0.7% of pregnancies, and the itch usually centers on the palms and soles and often worsens at night. Cypher said it happens when bile acids made in the liver back up into the bloodstream.

Cholestasis does not produce a rash, so the marks on Herbert’s palms likely came from scratching. The real danger falls on the baby, as untreated cholestasis can lead to preterm birth, breathing problems, and stillbirth. Stillbirth risk is highest above 100 micromoles per liter of bile acids, and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine advises delivery at 36 weeks at that level.

Bile acid tests in the U.S. often take several days, as many are sent to outside labs, which fits the two-day wait Herbert described. Ursodiol can ease the itch. However, the review found no clear evidence that it improves outcomes for babies, and fetal monitoring has not reliably predicted stillbirth in cholestasis cases either.

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