A little boy contracted a serious eye infection from mold that was in a bath toy. Her mother decided to alert other parents about the dangers of these toys. His Facebook post has been shared nearly 180,000 times.
It’s a story that could have ended very badly. In the United States, Eden Strong, a mother of three, recently had a terrible experience with her baby boy, Baylor. She says he contracted a serious eye infection after coming into contact with mold in a bath toy. "I knew that water could get stuck in this kind of toy, she explains. I had seen posts from moms cutting them off and finding large amounts of mold inside. I knew it. "
Realizing the potential risks, this is how Ms. Strong regularly worked to empty every toy and run bleach inside. But that was not enough, she said.
A simple irritation
Baylor's nanny once informed him that he had sprayed water from a bath toy in his eyes. Noting that one of them was a little red, she didn't worry more than that. It was at night that it started to get redder and redder.
Seeing that it was getting worse, Mrs. Strong asked her husband to take little Baylor to the doctor, where he was prescribed the drops.
"As I was paying close attention to how the situation unfolded, I decided to give him a booster dose in the middle of the night, just to make sure he would feel better in the morning., she continues. I didn't expect to find him in his cradle with an eye twice the size of when he lay down, with a rash spreading down his cheek ”.
Assuming it was cellulitis (a bacterial infection), she took him to the emergency room where doctors gave her oral antibiotics. When they got home, the family went to bed.
"Your son is at risk of losing his sight"
Hours later, it was with horror that Mrs. Strong discovered her son's eye. "His eye was so swollen that the white part that was between his eyelid and his iris was obscured", she explains. He was warm to the touch and after taking his temperature we saw that he had a raging fever. I cried the whole way to a bigger hospital, praying that he wouldn't lose his eye. "
Hospital staff put Baylor on IV antibiotics and scanned the retina to explain this "severe swelling". The little boy was eventually diagnosed with severe cellulitis, which spread across his face and both eyes.
“The following week was pretty scary, says Strong. They warned me that my son was in danger of losing his eyesight, but eventually, thank the Lord, his eyes healed. "
It was therefore in a desire to notify as many parents as possible that she decided to share her story. She concludes by saying that she would have liked " know it and other people know it too. "
Her advice on bath toys? Simply throw them away. "You can't clean them, you just can't", she concludes.