This mom says a free phone app saved her baby’s life
As much as we complain about our smartphones, sometimes they can be lifesavers — literally. And one Iowa woman is proof that this is true. She says she used a free pregnancy app that saved her baby’s life (along with some major new mama intuition).
The pregnant woman counted her unborn baby’s fetal kicks using a phone app, which ultimately saved the baby’s life.
The woman, Emily Eekhoff, says the app was called Count the Kicks, and she was using it because her doctor had told her to monitor her baby’s activity in utero as best she could. The 26-year-old revealed she was 33 weeks and five days pregnant, telling Us Weekly that she felt something was “just off.” She had been counting her daughter’s kicks regularly, but on that day, she detected “very little” activity.
She and her husband Jeremy went to the hospital, where doctors ran a heart rate test and an ultrasound, and found her baby was in distress. Eekhoff was brought in for an emergency cesarean section, and was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck tightly three times. Baby Ruby had to spend 20 days in the neonatal intensive care unit, but she’s now healthy and home safely with her parents and older brother Liam.
Eekhoff says using the free pregnancy app Count the Kicks helped her track Ruby’s movements during her third trimester, and credits the app with saving her newborn’s life.
“Using the app helped me to know with certainty Ruby’s normal movements. I could confidently tell my doctors at the hospital that she would usually get 10 or more movements in seven to eight minutes and I had the history on the app to show as well. Who knows where this could have gone had I not been so aware?”
Emily Price, executive director of Healthy Birth Day and Count the Kicks, told ABC News, “We are so grateful that Count the Kicks empowered Emily and helped save Ruby. When moms have the Count the Kicks app in their hands they have a lifesaving tool.”
We are so happy that Ruby is now healthy and safe, and thankful to Emily for getting her story out there to keep other moms informed about this wonderful tool.
