This is not superstition at all: such a hairstyle can greatly harm a newborn baby.
Briton Alex Upton woke up one morning because her 10-week-old son Azar was crying loudly and could not calm down.
It would seem nothing out of the ordinary. Babies often cry at night: hunger, colic, teething … but you never know why. But it was this cry that alerted the woman. The kid refused the bottle, he had a dry diaper, he was not bothered by his teeth. It was an unusual cry, and it was clear that the baby was in great pain. But what hurt?
At some point, Alex decided to completely disguise Azar. And she saw that the four fingers on his leg were red and swollen, and their base was wrapped in her own hair. Only 2-3 hairs have led to such a terrible effect.
“I think they squeezed his leg for at least 12-14 hours,” says the young mother.
Her hair was twisted so tightly, and her fingers were already so swollen that Alex could no longer untangle them just like that.
“I tried for about 15 minutes, this and that,” says the Briton. – I was already going to the hospital with Azar for the doctors to help us. But then I figured out to take the tweezers and pick up an unyielding hair for them. “
What happened to Hazard is called hair cord syndrome… Doctors have synonyms for him – turnstile syndrome or prolonged squeezing syndrome. This is a condition in which hair or threads pinch children’s fingers or genitals and disrupt the blood supply. Such a situation, if not noticed in time, is fraught with infection or necrosis, and in some cases self-amputation. That is, the fingers just fall off.
“The entanglement most often occurs around the penis and toes,” says in his pediatric surgeon Vladimir Cheprasov. – Rarely – around fingers and other parts of the body. Babies up to four months of age are at risk, because in the first time after giving birth, their mothers lose their hair especially strongly. “
On the one hand, it is difficult not to notice the problem: you regularly dress and undress your baby. On the other hand, if it is one thin blond hair, it may simply not be seen. Especially if he got into panties, diapers or socks, and you just put the baby to sleep for the whole night.
Sometimes it is enough to unwind the “stranglehold”, as Alex did. In severe cases, surgical intervention and possibly antibiotics are required. Avoiding this is initially very simple: just before messing around with the baby, pull the hair into a ponytail or bun. Better yet, wear a headscarf or bandana.