The Dangerous Thing You Are Ignoring In Your Baby’s Sock

By Aparna - Updated: December 13, 2018

In this Article

What You Must Do To Keep Your Child Safe

As a mom, you do everything in your power to keep your baby safe and healthy. You spend sleepless nights worrying about whether your baby is sleeping peacefully, and sanitise all his things to protect him from illness. But what if there is a dangerous threat lurking right in his socks?

As parents, we have all experienced those severely cranky days when do what we may, our baby refuses to calm down. They just seem inconsolable – and nothing, not even their favourite, never-do-us-apart red rattle seems to make things better. This happened recently to a little baby girl called Molly in Kansas, America. Except it wasn’t hunger, sleep or general crankiness that made her scream.

Molly was frantically screaming and crying. Her Mom and Dad did everything they could to calm her. The baby girl was also really hot, which is when they decided to remove her socks to cool her. This is the sight that met their eyes.

olly had developed a hair tourniquet which is when a hair or thread gets tied around a toe or finger. When the baby wriggles, this tightens and tightens, until it pierces the skin. In fact, it can even cut off all blood circulation to the toe. Fortunately, Molly’s mom could remove the hair with tweezers and a magnifying glass. However, if the hair tourniquet removal had taken longer, it could have inflicted severe, possibly fatal harm. There could also have been an amputation risk!

What You Must Do To Keep Your Child Safe

Medically, the hair tourniquet syndrome is quite common in babies, especially in the first two years after birth. Make sure you observe the following precautions:

If your baby is continually cranky, and you can’t seem to set it right, it’s always advisable to check his toes.
Moms suffering from post-pregnancy hair-loss need to be extra careful about loose strands of hair trapped in clothing.
You are also advised to check your baby’s fingers and genitals to see if a knotted hair has got entangled.
Avoid tight clothing for your baby. Make sure there is enough wriggle room.