Jill Duggar has been a reality TV star since childhood.
As such, she’s accustomed to sharing just about everything with her family’s massive fan base.
But there are some things that even Jill would prefer to keep private.
When Jill welcomed her second child back in July of 2017, she waited several weeks before posting a photo.
Now, fans believe they know why.
Jill’s husband, Derick Dillard, posted the above photo on his Instagram page this week as part of a montage celebrating his mother’s birthday.
Fans were shocked by the never-before-seen image of baby Samuel hooked up to wires with tubes coming out of his nose.
Some of Derick’s followers were deeply concerned by what they saw.
Others insisted that while they’re certainly unsettling, such scenes are not uncommon.
“That is a tube to suction fluid out of the lungs,” commented one fan.
“When babies are born by C-section the fluid does not get pushed out by contractions. It is normal to have to get this out, not a complication. Happened with both my C-section babies.”
Others continue to suspect that Samuel experienced serious health problems from birth and that the Duggars did their best to downplay the severity of the situation.
“Omg poor Samuel, feeding tube and oxygen. Don’t think he was as healthy at birth as you said originally,” one of Derick’s followers wrote.
At the time of Samuel’s birth, the Duggars did reveal that he was born via C-section following a difficult and complicated labor.
“After 40 hours of labor, he was delivered via C-section at the hospital,” the family revealed in a statement released just after the birth.
“Thank you for your continued prayers and support!”
“His birth didn’t go as expected,” Jill later stated in an interview with People magazine.
In all likelihood, fans will never know exactly how serious Samuel’s health problems were at the time of his birth.
Derick Dillard has been fired by TLC as a result of some controversial public statements, and it appears as though his family will be leaving the spotlight along with him.
So going forward, the only source of information about the Dillard family will be the Dillards themselves.
Watch Counting On online to relive how Jill and Derick got to where they are today.
