TUB TOY TERROR
Amum has issued a heartbreaking warning to other parents after her son nearly lost his eyesight from his bath toys. Eden explained how she had assumed she was doing everything she could to keep little Baylor safe.
After every bath, the American mum of three made sure to squeeze water out of the toys and regularly cleaned them with bleach water.
But it wasn’t enough.
The shocking truth became clear earlier this year when her toddler, Baylor, squirted himself in the eye with one of the toys and it instantly turned red.
Eden’s husband rushed him to the doctor, who agreed that Baylor had likely developed conjunctivitis.
But overnight, Baylor’s condition worsened, the redness spreading down his cheeks.
“I wasn’t expecting to find him in his crib with an eye twice the size as it was when he went to bed, with redness spreading down his cheek,” Eden said.
“As a bit of an internet medical guru, I immediately wondered if he might be developing cellulitis, and so off to the ER we went. There, another doctor once again agreed with my diagnosis and wrote him a prescription for oral antibiotics, which we filled and gave him at 2.30am.”
By the next morning, Baylor’s eye was so swollen that he wasn’t able to close it.
The terrified parents went straight back to the hospital, worried their little boy was about to lose an eye.
“His eye was so swollen that the white part was bulging out from between his eyelid and his iris was being obscured,” Eden said.
“He felt hot to the touch and a temperature check showed that he had a raging fever.
“The next week was pretty scary. He had severe cellulitis that eventually spread down his face and to both eyes.
“They warned me that he may lose vision in the worse eye, but in the end, thank the Lord, his eyes healed.”
Now that Baylor’s condition has improved, Eden is determined to make sure that nobody else has to go through the same pain.
She encouraged parents to regularly throw out their bath toys as they are too hard to clean.
“I don’t have any mouldy tub toy pictures to show here, because there was never any visible mould to take a picture of,” she said.
“You can’t see bacteria and I’ve known that since sixth grade science class, but I thought I was better than dirty tub toys. I was wrong.”
Grateful fans quickly jumped on the post, which quickly gained more than 21,000 views.
“That’s terrifying! I don’t think I have any tub toys and my kids haven’t played in the bath for a while but I’ll check and they’re going in the garbage,” one mum said.
“Oh that poor little face! I’m so happy to hear his eyes healed completely.”