Ex-Hollyoaks star Ali Bastian recalls daughter's "terrifying" hospital trip
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Former Hollyoaks star Ali Bastian has recalled a "terrifying" hospital trip with her daughter Isla.
The actor, who is known for playing Becca Hayton (later Dean) in the Channel 4 soap between 2001 and 2007, gave birth to her first child with husband David O’Mahony in 2020.
In an interview with OK!, the former Strictly semi-finalist opened up about Isla’s struggles with allergies from a very young age.
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She said: "Isla had severe eczema at eight weeks and was covered head to toe. She was a very colicky, uncomfortable baby. I was just like, ‘What’s happening to my child?’
"But when the eczema really took flight, I knew that something wasn’t right. I had a Zoom dermatologist appointment and looking at her on Zoom, he said, ‘I think this is an early indicator of food allergies [and] you should go and see an allergist."
When Isla was four months old, Bastian found out that she was allergic to peanuts, milk, and eggs, and she received training on how to use an EpiPen. But she later discovered that Isla also had a very severe reaction to wheat, which led to a scary trip to the hospital when she was five months old.
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"Suddenly I had a child who was profusely vomiting to the point of systemic shutdown," she said. "She was blue and floppy. We were rushed into hospital in an ambulance.
"The treatment for that is IV fluids. But when it’s a baby with those symptoms, they also assume it might be sepsis, so she was being treated for sepsis too. Luckily, she did bounce back quite quickly from that. But it was absolutely terrifying."
Bastian shared that she wants to use her platform to help families who have children with allergies navigate the world with confidence.
She said: "It’s making it known so that we can have more confidence about it, so the allergy families feel less alone.
"But also, I hope that other families that don’t know about allergies, will have a little more insight into what a family might be going through and making changes. It makes such a huge difference."
Hollyoaks streams first online via Channel 4 each weekday at 7.30pm. Episodes then air on E4 the following day, before getting their YouTube premiere a week after that.
Selected omnibus episodes are available via Prime Video.
Read more Hollyoaks spoilers on our dedicated homepage
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