Check those Baby Toes!

I'm sure that many of you have seen the pictures and heard the warnings of strings getting wrapped around babies toes, creating a tourniquet effect and causing the toes to swell, sometimes even breaking the skin. If you haven't, simply Google "string on baby toes" and you'll have a number of gruesome images to choose from. I had seen these before but since my little one doesn't hardly wear socks I hadn't paid much mind to it. Until yesterday. Our two month old wasn't herself. She's been sleeping through the night but that morning had woken up at 4 am. She didn't finish her normal 4 ounces and it was difficult getting her back to sleep. She was awake again at 6 am and again didn't finish her bottle, just cried and cried. We tried giving her a bath and gave her some gas drops thinking maybe her tummy was hurting her. After her bath we put a new outfit on her and she took a long nap. But later that day when she woke up she was still crying and just completely inconsolable. That's when my husband noticed her foot looked a little funny. Evidently one of my long hairs had gotten wrapped around several of her toes and they were swollen so much that the hair was barely even visible. It took quite a bit of effort but we finally managed to get the hair off with a pair of tweezers. Thankfully the skin wasn't broken and one day later even though you can still see the marks she's back to her old self. So just to pass on the warning to others with infants at home, if your baby is crying and not themselves, remove their clothing and socks and check those little precious toes well. I would have never thought something so frail as a single strand of hair could have caused my baby so much pain.