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Sweet baby toes can be the source of a rare but painful condition called toe tourniquet syndrome, in which hair wraps around the tiny digit, cutting off circulation.
When it comes to babies, it seems that danger lurks in the most unusual of places. Certainly one would never see a wisp of human hair as a menace.
But, as it turns out, if a single strand of hair wraps around a baby’s toe, it can cut off circulation and ultimately doom the appendage. Though rare, this happens often enough for doctors to have given it a name: toe tourniquet syndrome.
Michelle Whelan’s baby was one of the lucky ones. One day as Whelan was changing her infant she noticed that several of her baby’s toes were beginning to turn purple. Whelan was sure if she couldn’t find out what was wrong that her baby might lose one or more of her toes.
Fortunately for Whelan, the surgeon at her local hospital on Massachusetts' Nantucket Island, Dr. Timothy Lepore, recognized right away what had happened. He pulled out his magnifying glasses, spotted the culprit strand and cut it away.
Whelan’s story, along with many other intriguing cases handled by Lepore, are described in the new book “Island Practice,” written by Pam Belluck, a New York Times health writer.
“I didn’t know anything about toe tourniquet syndrome when I had my two kids,” says Belluck. “It’s not in any pregnancy books or first-year books. You’d think the hair would break, but it’s apparently very strong and can get 100 revolutions around a tiny toe if you have long hair.”
The actual incidence of toe tourniquet syndrome is unknown, but doctors have documented dozens of reports of rare cases. The problem doesn’t always involve the toes. A 1988 Pediatrics study reviewed 60 cases of what was dubbed “hair-thread tourniquet syndrome.” Of those, 24 incidents involved toes, 14 involved fingers and 22 painful incidents reported hair wrapped around babies’ genitals, including tiny penises.
As recently as this year, the Hong Kong Journal of Paediatrics reported the case of a 2 1/2-month-old girl whose right fourth toe was inexplicably blue and swollen -- until doctors detected an errant hair and removed it.
Lepore says he’s seen only three cases in his 30 years of practice. But he’s still on alert for the syndrome any time he sees a baby with a discolored toe or other digit.
“You’ve got to have a persistent paranoid suspicion whenever you see something that doesn’t look right -- like a blue or a red toe,” he says. “And you can’t let people blow you off. If your kid’s toe is blue there’s got to be a reason.”
The danger, if your doctor doesn’t recognize toe tourniquet syndrome, is that your baby could lose a toe, Lepore says. Don’t be afraid to mention toe tourniquet syndrome to the doctor if that diagnosis doesn’t get consideration, he adds.
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The amount of hair that I shed after having my son/stopping my prenatal vitamins - this does not surprise me at all. I was always picking hairs off of him! I always worried about it, even before reading this article.
I have eight children and I always thank God that I have been fortunate enough that none of these, or really any tragedies have hit us. So many dangers in the world from so many sources.
To all the "hair net," and "shake the baby," etc. comments below: I love it. You guys are great
WOW
toe tourniquet syndrome (TTS).
It is the single greatest constant threat poised to amputate your baby's little cute toe. As a loving mother you owe it to yourself and your baby to eradicate this threat. Letting it fester too long, it could even grow into hand tourniquet syndrome (HTS). Fortunately for Internet viewers, there's a healthy prevention kit for concern mothers.
For $19.95 plus free shipping and handling, you can order the clinical proven ATTSK, Anti Toe Tourniquet Syndome Kit. These warm and comfy devices slip over your baby's foot and protect it all day and night from TTS. Order now! Operators are standing by! MC, Visa, AmX, and Discover are welcome.
PS. As a free gift when you order now, a self-tightening tourniquet around the neck of Linda Carroll.
That is kind of a stupid comment. If you are on the ball enough to even realize that is a possibility, let's say after reading this article, wouldn't you pull out a magnifying glass yourself first, and check for a wayward strand of hair? I would.
This exact thing happened to my 5th child. But luckily I examined his toe carefully and found the culprit hair, wrapped around his toe 3 times, and still more to go. I guess it was hidden in the foot of his one-piece sleeper. I've never heard of this before either. The color quickly came back to his toe, luckily, because I would have been extremely embarrassed if I had to take him to the ER or his doctor. Didn't know this was a common threat to babies. That was 26 years ago. He's never had any residual effects from that, thank heavens.
We need to pass a law that anyone who handles a baby needs to wear a hairnet.
IT'S FOR THE CHILDREN!!!!!
o'really...grow a f''n brain..
lets make it a law if your too stupid you shouldnt reproduce...where would you be
Hairnets are an inconvenience. I just shake the baby real hard to rid it of stray hairs.
groomergirl apparently can't recognize sarcasm.
<sarcasm>
Your suggestion doesn't go far enough we need the gov't to tell how we should have our hair cut. I can't make these kinds of decisions for myself. will someone please think of the children.
</sarcasm>
Conservatives only want the government to tell people who they can marry.
groomergirl - the question here is where would you be, considering that you are too ignorant to know the correct spelling of "your"? Confused? That should be "you're", as in a contraction of "you are", not the possessive pronoun "your". That is one of several errors you made in a post that contained only 21 words. Heaven forbid that you might have to write a 500 word essay.
Ever hear the cliche, "It's better to be thought a fool and remain silent than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt?
sam, All we the rest of us here want is for you to stick your head in a toilet so All the crap that spills out of it goes to the best place for it, thus the rest of us who are neither paid political bloggers OR nutcase political groupies can have an escape from your ilk. Regardless of what "identical other than name" party you support. P.S. 90%+ of these brainwash attempts via blog have been Liberals. There is no damn way I'd vote for a group that thinks the general public and I are brain dead enough to fall for these "EVERYTHING CAN BE TWISTED INTO A POLITICAL ATTACK" attempts.
hahahahaha. Gator, You goofed. For you it should be:" Tis better to be thought to be anal retentive than to spread your cheeks and let it all out for all to see."
It's for the children, motherhood, and world peace!
A small tax will be levied on all hair salon to fund this noble public welfare program. Estimated annual revenued generated will be $1billion and create 1000 government jobs.
UMGator:
Since you insist on being so grammatically correct today.......
Possessive Adjectives:
My house.
Your house
His, Her house
Our house
Their house.
Possessive Pronoun:
That house is mines.
That house is yours.
That house is hers, his.
That house is ours.
That house is theirs.
That house is mines???????????? Funny
Why blame the baby handler? Maybe the baby needs to practice better grooming.
Awe, poor babies. Don't think this doesn' t happen. My baby had been on a shaggy blanket and I noticed that a tiny thread had wrapped around her toe. It was swollen and blue and even the nurse next door couldn't get it off. We took her to the emergency room, she would have lost her toe if we hadn't noticed. They had to bring in a surgeon to remove it. Trust me it happens.
Great.... another "baby safety issue" to make parents even more neurotic. Just wrap your kid in bubble wrap, put on a helmet and never let them leave the house.
You know what? This is not another "baby safety issue", this is COMMON SENSE.
Years before I had my daughter, a friend of mine mentioned this to me because she had longer hair and was concerned enough to check her infant son's toes and fingers just because something like that COULD happen.
No neuroticism here. I'll say it again...COMMON SENSE. If you have long hair and a baby, a quick check is all that's needed.
How is passing on information a bad thing? All this article is saying is keep your eyes open. There are always mechanisms that lead to tragedies and being aware of them is the most important step in prevention.
Another no-shiit-sherlock article.
Hardly. I'd never heard of it until now. Too bad we're not all omniscient like you.
No, noone EVER washes their babies toes..lol
I'd never heard of it until it happened to my son. He wound up having to be hospitalized for 3 days and is lucky the toe didn't need to be amputated. The ER pediatrician at Children's Hospital Boston who treated my son said that the hair sometimes can get wrapped around the male genitals- ouch!
This can happen whether your hair is long or short, straight or curly. In fact, I think curly hair is worse.
This happened to my oldest grandson and fortunately he was old enough to talk. A hair had wrapped around his penis and caused enough discomfort for him to tell his mother. She was able to unwind the hair and he is fine. He doesn't remember it, but his Mom won't ever forget it.
Glad to see some of you also have a good sense of humor.
My sister-in-law told me about this 30 yrs ago when my son was born.
Thank you Darla because who'da thunk?
Why the nastiness? Who said wrap anyone in anything? No, it isn't what you said, hater, and o'really, why would you say that here?
So if the hair is blonde or really tight you can't even see it and might not realize what is happening. I don't understand why some people feel the need to be nasty when the article has something that actually could help a baby keep a finger or toe instead of losing one? What is the need? You know it already just move on...some don't and some who do might not realize that is what is happening until the part is dead. Geez. If it helps someone learn something and helps a child what is the harm and what satisfaction do you get from bashing the authors and making fun of people?
Because Ram, some people's days are not complete until they have had something witty (in their own mind) or sarcastic to say. I just shake my head at most of this stuff.
Bingo! I have highlighted hair and didn't see the one caught around my son's toe. All I knew was that he was screaming inconsolably, poor little guy! Fortunately, the ER pediatrician was able to figure out what was wrong and get the hair off in time to save the toe.
Why the nastiness about the satisfaction I get from bashing those who would over-react to news such as this and rush to pass a law because they are convinced the government can raise a child better than any parent. In NJ there seems to be a competition among lawmakers to pass legislation named after a child who suffered some rare consequence of normal living. No soda in the lunchroom! Brand novice drivers with stickers on their cars! No passengers in the cars of new drivers!
We pass laws to require cars to stop on a dime if a pedestrian steps into the street rather than teach our children how to cross. We ban food instead of teaching them how to eat. We can't trust parents to put their babies in car seats unless there is a law, so why would we trust them to keep errant hairs from strangling their children's digits?
Not to be overreacted too, more to let parents know this DOES happen as it did to my son. Human hair is EXTREMELY strong. Read bellow my experience with one of these. It's not something to lose sleep over. Rather to just be aware this isn't THAT unusual.
This happened to my youngest. I got her up and took her out of her blanket sleeper and when changing her diaper, I noticed one of her toes was red in color. Apparently, there was a hair in the sleeper that tangled as she wriggled in her sleep. I removed the hair and she had no permanent damage. I agree that the best course of action for a parent is simply close observation of your baby.
To pass laws for the rare exception and inconvenience the rest makes no sense. Also the cost of enforcing said laws and the extra work for police is burdensome. That's not common sense, that's the government telling us we're too stupid to live without their help.
And if you get a hair in your eye, it can wrap around your optic nerve and sever it, leaving you blinded. SAFETY GOGGLES ON!!!
God that's a horrid thought. I'm going to imagine that every time I get something in my eye now...
I knew a co-worker who had to have surgery thanks to an ingrown hair that wrapped around his tailbone & spine.
I have very long hair and I've unwrapped hairs off my children's toes before. My youngest child is three months old and I check her toes at least once a day and if she's crying and I don't know why I check her again. It's just another thing to be aware of as a parent. I think that it probably wasn't an issue until the last 100 years or so because before then women almost always wore their hair up or confined in some way, so the "shedding" was contained to wherever they combed their hair. I notice that most of the times hairs have been wrapped around my daughters toes or finger have been days that I wore my hair loose.
wrong answer. you think they wore coverings or kept it up while they slept? what about dads hair? it was long back then. i think people are losing their ability to use common sense.
Dikdialook, women usually kept their hair braided and/or covered with a nightcap when sleeping one hundred plus years ago. Women and girls didn't wash their as often as they do today, so part of keeping hair neat and clean was by keeping it contained in some way nearly all of the time. Also, while some men did wear their hair long, most did not and were not the main caregivers of children as women typically were and still are.
This actually happened to my niece. She was at Children's for like 6 hours before they figured out what the problem was - and could get to the hair!
I don't think it is anything to overreact about; I don't check everyone's toes everyday. A purple toe is something that would catch my eye without being a worry-wart.
Tomorrow there will be a whole new line of socks and mittens to keep hairs from wrapping around individual digits. And you will be a horrible parent for not purchasing them. You should have your children taken away. And, you should be subject to public ridicule next time you are outside of your home. Just one more thing to make us judge each other as parents.
I think they should upgrade this "syndrome" to a disease and put all the babies on Ritalin. That'll fix it. I say it everywhere I go.....if you see it on the news, it's not news. Ladies been having babies for how long now? If you have kids then you know how the first few months are. Baby-proofing the house, washing and sanitizing things 4-5 times a day, restless nights because you don't know if SIDS will attack inbetween feedings. The attention to detail is there, especially when you are looking at any excuse to bother your doc in the middle of the night about discolored skin or a rough patch below the ankle. Sure, watch out for that hair...but it must not be a big problem because I have yet to hear it from a doc. Just saying, don't jump on the bandwagon just because it's for a good cause. Check the credibility of "Though rare, this happens often enough for doctors to have given it a name: toe tourniquet syndrome." You know doctors have been saying for years and years to their new mommys and daddys "become familiar with your newborns body so you can contrast differences as they appear". Ah well I'm done. Maybe I'll get some juicy comments out of this after I get these three bottles ready.
This happened to my son as an infant. He had been crying for a day or so when I removed his sock. The hair was not VERY tight around two of his toe, but enough to cause discomfort. That is until I tried to pull the hair off. It gripped his skin and dug in like twisted piano wire on his delicate baby skin. I was freaking by now. Had my daughter call 911 but was sure they wouldn't get there before his toes would die. I used my pocket knife to cut it free (luckily it had 2 toes wrapped together) and even though I had cut his toes to free it, Immediately he was content again. Was years later that I finally read about and learned the phrase "hair tourniquet". Should you find one on your child, Please be careful in your attempts to remove it. I can't come up with a good description for how extremely a hair can burrow into an infants flesh. It looked sort of like the spot where a long thin balloon is twisted when someone is making a balloon animal. The hair just imbeds in the skin.
Time to pass another law to protect the children. Anyone coming in contact with a baby must have their head shaved first.
We don't want another family to have to deal with a lost pinky. If just one pinky can be saved, etc. etc. ad nauseum.
Another problem is there is no one for the class action attorney's to sue to 'protect' all babies.
Grow up!!
Oh really oreally? Don't you think maybe idiotic laws are passed much of the time because we have elected officials on individually the city/town, county, state, AND Federal levels who's primary job description is "Law Maker". And if they were Not making laws, they would have this used against them the next election, and/or have the general population feel their position is not needed any longer and can be eliminated.
Wow, all the irritation is really not necessary. If you were already aware of this, great. If you are a new mom or dad and didn't know this, it is certainly helpful information. No one said anything about passing laws or going to other extremes. Seems like it was just a way to pass information to those who might need it.
I'm surprised at the nasty comments. How many of you have heard of hair tourniquets before this article? This happened to my daughter when she was five months old. I have long blonde hair and didn't see it. I knew she was in pain and couldn't figure out why. I found it before her toes turned blue, but she had been in pain for several hours. We had a doctor's appointment later that day and the doctor told me all about hair tourniquets and how they will often get so tight that the baby's appendages swell up and they can't be cut off (apparently they use Nair in the ER). I'm a very loving, attentive mother who is well educated. Like the article said, this isn't in the baby books and it doesn't happy that often.
Finally a useful comment!
Our son had a thread from his footed baby suit get wrapped around one of his toes at 4 month. It was starting to cut off the circulation in the toe and took quite an effort to remove since it had embedded itself into the skin 1/16 of an inch. After that we turned the suits inside out and made sure there were no loose threads in the toe areas.
everybody panic!!!!!
Don't most parents check fingers, toes and everything else when they bathe their babies and/or change diapers?
I can't believe someone didn't notice a thread around their baby's toe until it had imbedded 1/16 inch.
dark hair on a dark baby can be hard to see, same way with blonde hair on fair-skinned baby.
Oh, please. If your baby gets damaged, just trade it in for a new model, or pop another one out.
It's not like they're all that hard to make.
Thank heavens you're (see gator I did it right . stop scrunchin your sfinckster muscles) here Samuel. A political weirdo in guise as ye has posted above in attempt to tarnish thy good name.
don't you think that this has been happening SINCE THE DAWN OF TIME?!?!?!!? is it now in the year 2012 that human beings are so retarded that they have to make up a name for that? its just common sense. you bathe your baby once a day right? if you don't they start smelling like cheese. check out the digits while cleaning them. not too hard dumbasses.
Are you even a parent? Babies don't need baths every day. You wipe their faces, hands and butts constantly so no need to bathe but once a week. I think you're the dumbass.
Well you obviously stink. Oh no,no. My mistake. I apoligize ma'am. Thought it said SEPTICmom. Sorry
So now it's on to how often a baby needs bathed? Really?!?! Baby skin is delicate, bathing every day isn't good for them at all... but once a week is not neatly enough! ewwww How about every other day... baby wipes clean to a certain extent but come on, it's nowhere nearly as clean as a bath! Grossest thing is seeing dirt caked in the folds of a baby's neck... disgusting... and if the neck looks like that, bets are off that the baby is being properly cleansed.
I had this happen to me, and I'm 41--one of my long hairs wrapped around a middle toe. I didn't realize there was a problem until I noticed that the toe felt weird in my shoe, then I took off my sock and saw a long hair wrapped around it.
That's pretty sad StandUpJokeOff. Most of us guys refer to it as our middle leg. Either way, had to hurt.
But at least you SAW the hair. You didn't require an ER visit. What kind of parent doesn't see the hair on their baby's toes or fingers but instead panics and takes them to the ER. First I would look. Are these invisible hairs? I doubt it. Some people are just too stupid to be parents.
Geez people. I read about this years ago in a Parenting magazine. That story was about getting the hair from the foot end of footed jammies. Ever since, I just pull those feet part of the jammies inside out to check for hairs. I have long hair that has been falling out constantly for 5 years since I've been pregnant 3 times. It's rare, but I'd hate to see anyone's baby lose a toe over it. If the hair wraps around that little toe at the beginning of the night, by morning it may already be too late to save the toe. Don't put so much blame on parents who don't know about this issue and don't think to check in their sleep deprived state. There's a never-ending list of things parents have to watch out for. And Laura-313822, you must not be a parent. Or maybe you're a parent of just 1 child. Try having 3 in diapers...you don't conduct a physical examination at every diaper change, and baths might not occur every day.
Thanks Skeptic Mom- I did have this issue with the sleepers. I loose nylon thread from the sleeper did wrap around the childs toe. From that point on I did cut all the feet off the sleepers. Sorry I didn't read about it- I just noticed her toe turning blue and managed to free the thread before damage was done.