After exhausting all the options to soothe their newborn baby, an unsuspecting mother and father found something incredible after inspecting her leg. The discovery made them scream in shock.
Scott and Jessica Walker were ecstatic when little Molly was born. However, she was born a little premature and had to spend an additional 3 weeks in the hospital before being released. She was a perfectly normal little baby, and her parents couldn’t ask for more. The family already had a 2-year-old sister at home who had also arrived prematurely. With their track record, they were more relaxed and ready to enjoy Second Time Around Parenthood.
Despite the challenges and the initial scare, adjusting to life with a new baby in their humble house in WIA Kansas was both exciting and exhausting. The couple often got less sleep than they were used to. Sleep deprivation can cause a parent to over and underreact depending on their personalities and state of mind.
Scott and Jessica took turns getting up at night, and when little Molly demanded their full attention, they gave it without reserve. After all, it was not as if they were not prepared for the initial difficult first few months of their baby girl’s life. On top of taking care of Molly, they also had a 2-year-old toddler who brought her own set of demands to the table.
The parents had to strike the delicate balance of focusing on Molly while still making her sister feel important and secure. Integrating the two siblings was a task to be executed with great wisdom and patience. But that was not the only challenging task they were facing. Keeping the marriage strong was something that Scott and Jessica had agreed upon before Molly was born. Although she had taken up a very special place in both their hearts, the couple vowed to make time to focus on their relationship instead of just being Molly and her sister’s parents.
They made themselves a promise that they would do fun things together and not fall into the rut of just surviving. And as the baby started sleeping longer hours, it came the time to have some fun and go on some type of outing. One thing Scott and Jessica weren’t ready to do was to leave Molly with a caretaker. Wherever they planned to go, it should be a setup that could accommodate a little baby and the toddler. Any activity where no kids are allowed would not have their vote.
Scott suggested they simply go and enjoy a meal somewhere that was not home. Not only did they look forward to the nice food the restaurant had on offer, but they also wanted to show off their precious baby girl to the world. Although it was a warm day, they opted to go for lunch, as the cool evening air might cause little Molly to get sick. At that time, she was about 19 weeks old, and her parents were confident that she would sleep through the first few hours they would be out.
Unfortunately, that day something went wrong. If fate had not intervened and the problem had gone undetected, the outcome could have been nothing short of disastrous. No baby book had prepared this family for the situation that was about to unfold.
Usually, when Molly was upset, either her mom or dad could identify the source of their daughter’s misery within a few minutes, sort out the problem, and make her stop crying. A lovely hot bottle or clean nappy would usually do the trick. There were also the crampy days when she would cry for a while, but the rhythmic pads on the back soon sorted out that problem as well. Molly would fall asleep again, and the sense of peace would fall onto the household.
This day was completely different. Shortly after the family arrived at the restaurant, Molly found it difficult and irritating. She simply would not stop crying. She was at the right age for teething, and her parents wondered if her first baby tooth had indeed chosen their first night out as a family to make its appearance.
What made the situation all the more upsetting was the fact that the couple was in a public place, with eyes staring and some people whispering behind their hands. Both Scott and Jessica felt attention building. The couple had already ordered a meal and was waiting for their food. Although the service at the restaurant was excellent, the short wait felt like ages.
All the while, Scott and Jessica took turns trying to comfort their baby girl, but nothing was working. Sometimes parents bear the soft sobs of their children because they know that they will soon subside. Then there’s a type of cry that is much more like a scream that cuts into the soul of her parents. Molly was crying in a way that made it clear that she was in pain and discomfort, without knowing what the source of the pain was. Her parents were left helpless and felt like crying themselves.
Additionally, big sister was also demanding attention and needed help with her food. With such a lot of tension in the air, she was becoming agitated. Her behavior stemmed from the fact that her parents were feeling like they were losing control over the situation and needed to focus all their attention on Molly. The older sister could not understand why she could not be the center of attention as well.
The tension was steadily building in Scott and Jessica’s hearts and minds. Should they wait a little longer and hope that Molly would stop crying on her own? The couple looked at each other, and without saying a word, they abandoned their meals and decided to rush home. Since Jessica was a nurse, Scott felt confident that his wife would find the problem sooner than later. After all, she was a very competent and resourceful person to begin with, but her added knowledge of nursing gave the family the security that she would have the appropriate answers and solutions whenever their daughters were not feeling 100%.
As the couple was driving home, Jessica was almost certain that Molly was running a fever and removed a romper to allow her body to start cooling down. They were not far from home, but the drive felt much longer as some anxiety started to surface in the otherwise cucumber-cool mother.
The moment the family arrived home, Scott rushed to the medicine cabinet to get something to break the fever. Molly was still too young for the unusual medicines, but they still didn’t want her fever to spike. On Jessica’s instruction, he brought a cold press to further help his daughter’s body cool down. However, it did not seem that the body was responding in the way that it should.
It was then that Jessica realized that little Molly still had her pretty little socks on. Since a lot of heat is released through our feet, removing them should have been the first thing they did. But in the confusion of the moment, this simple trick remained forgotten. Jessica removed the socks and immediately noticed that her daughter’s feet were extremely red. She realized that the socks had caused additional overheating of the body.
As a trained nurse, she was about to cool down her daughter’s feet in a bowl of water when she noticed that one of the toes seemed swollen. Jessica asked Scott to rush to the baby’s room to get her a flashlight, tweezers, and a pair of very delicate scissors. When Scott brought these items, she asked him to also get a magnifying glass from the cupboard in the kitchen. She had to make sure that what she had diagnosed as the problem was indeed correct.
The moment that the couple looked through the magnifying glass, they both gasped in shock. They had no idea how this might have happened. Fortunately, Jessica had the confidence to deal with the situation herself. She asked Scott to hold Molly tightly and prepare to deal with the problem causing the constant crying of their little girl.
Under the magnifying glass, what Jessica discovered was shocking. Wrapped around one of her toes was a single strand of hair. The hair had somehow cut into the little girl’s flesh, but it was so tight that it was starting to cut off some blood flow to the toe. This was what was causing the extreme fever Molly was exhibiting. The troubling toe must have been the reason why the little baby girl simply could not stop crying.
It was a delicate process, but Jessica had sufficient experience to take the tweezers and cut the hair loose from the toe. As soon as it was done, little Molly immediately stopped crying. However, it took almost 45 minutes after the hair was removed for the toe to start swelling down. If they hadn’t acted this swiftly, then perhaps the delicate toe would have lost all feeling. A delay in treatment could have caused serious complications like tissue death or even bone erosion, which could have led to the need for amputation.
But thankfully, Jessica had identified the source of the pain her daughter was feeling and acted fast. After calm and peace had been restored to their home, Scott asked his wife if she ever had seen a similar situation in her years of nursing. Although an incident like this is not extremely common, it also isn’t an isolated occurrence. She had seen with her own eyes various incidences of something similar happening to other babies.
When Scott started doing his research, he soon found that the condition even had an official name. It is called a hair tourniquet, and it happens when hair becomes attached to a finger or toe. The hairs can come from various sources, including a parent, as children often grab onto a person’s hair. When the hair wraps around the limb and remains undetected, it can cut into the soft flesh of the baby. When left untreated for too long, the hair may become inaccessible and cause much more serious damage than what was the case with little Molly.
Hair tourniquets typically affect infants that are about 2 months old. After Scott and Jessica went through this terrible ordeal, they knew they wanted to warn other parents that something as simple as an unchecked sock with a hair in it could cause a serious medical emergency. A knotted hair may seem like something innocent, but this family wanted to make sure that no innocent baby would suffer unnecessarily because few parents are aware of such a condition.
When Scott shared their story on his Facebook page, the response was overwhelming. The post got more than 50,000 likes and was reposted more than 35,000 times. This was confirmation that the message was important and that it had to be shared far and wide. If this message could save only one child hardship, it would have been worth posting our story, Scott said.
As parents, we are completely responsible for our children. Although we may love our kids with all our hearts, we may not necessarily pay that close attention to every little detail. From now on, a simple thing as a hair on my kids’ glades will catch my eye. We have learned a difficult lesson that night. Jessica and Scott kept a close look on baby Molly. The child luckily slept through the night and woke up as fresh as a rose, ready for another blissful day.
Both parents thanked their lucky stars that nothing worse had happened and started once again looking forward to another date night, this time as uneventful as possible. What a scary story! Have you ever deemed it necessary to look for hairs inside your baby’s socks?
