Baby's Toes Almost Amputated After Mom's Hair Strand Becomes Wrapped Around Them

Oct 11, 2018 by apost team

When it comes to infants, it feels like danger lurks everywhere. From buying organic food to removing pillows from the crib, you do everything possible to keep your children safe.

Unfortunately, it turns out that another danger is hiding on your head.

Recently, one 26-year-old mother had a terrifying ordeal with her infant. Her baby was only two-months-old, but the tiny infant had to fight for his toes. A strand of the mom's hair wrapped around the baby's toes and strangled off the blood supply. Since the toes went without blood circulation for more than 12 hours, the baby's toes almost had to be amputated.

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The parents realized that something was wrong when the baby, Ezra, woke up screaming. The mother, Alex Upton, thought that Ezra was just hungry. When he refused milk, she became confused. Normally, the baby woke up crying for milk. After eating, the baby would go back to sleep. Something weird was going on.

Alex could not figure out what was happening, so she decided to change his diaper hoping it would help.

As she took Ezra's clothes off, she discovered the problem.

A single strand of hair had become tangled around his toes. His toes had become red and swollen. The terrified mom tried to take the hair off of his toes, but it was wound too tightly. Finally, she managed to get three of the toes free of the hair. The toe next to his big toe was too swollen to remove the hair.

Alex spent 15 minutes trying to remove the hair, but nothing seemed to work. She thought about calling an ambulance, but she decided to try one more time with a pair of tweezers. Finally, she managed to free his toes.

After freeing all of Ezra's toes, Alex took him to the doctor to be checked out. The doctor gave her some antibacterial cream to prevent an infection. Thankfully, his toes healed without a problem. If the hair tourniquet had stayed on the toes a little longer, he may have lost all of his toes.

This condition is known as hair tourniquet syndrome. It happens when hair wraps around a body part and cuts off the blood supply. In babies, this can cause excessive crying. The affected location becomes swollen, red and discolored. Sometimes, the hair is not visible at all. You can still see an indentation and swelling when you look at the affected spot.

On that fateful day, Alex learned a terrifying lesson. From now on, she is going to check Ezra's toes and fingers constantly. She also recommends that other parents make sure that stray hairs are removed before changing a baby's clothes. Mothers can also prevent hair from hurting their baby by brushing their hair regularly and pulling their hair back into a ponytail.

Make sure that your friends know to watch out for this potential danger by telling them about this article.