Toddler 'lucky' to be alive after being strangled by mum's hair in bed
A hair tourniquet cut off circulation in the boy's neck.
Doctors say a one year old toddler is "very, very lucky" to be alive after he was accidentally strangled by his mum's hair while laying in bed beside her, with his parents waking to their son unconscious between them.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning the youngster climbed into bed and fell asleep between his parents when they were "woken by some quiet but very distressing crying". Despite attempting to turn and soothe her child, the mum was unable to move from her sleeping position.
"I tried to look over my shoulder as my son always steals my pillow, but I couldn't move my head. Something was pulling me down," she recalled to Tiny Hearts Education.
Able to freely move, her partner was horrified to find her long hair was wrapped around their son's neck restricting his airways. He began to "rip" the hair from around his son's neck in attempt to free him.
"His neck had a deep strangulation mark from my hair and he had Petechiae (broken blood vessels) all over his face and neck... He stopped breathing, and we really thought he was gone," the mum said.
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The child suffered from hair tourniquet — a loss of circulation caused by a tightly wounded strand of hair around a body part. The risk is often greater to young child given their bodies are smaller, according to Healthline.
After rushing their son to hospital, doctors confirmed it had been a "near-death experience" and the family are "very, very lucky he is still here with us."
Tiny Hearts co-founder Nikki Jurcutz — child safety educator and paramedic — called the incident "rare" but admits even as an experienced educator she got a shock when hearing the story, sharing she will be "much more mindful" of her own hair around her children.
It is often children's finger and toes at risk of hair tourniquets, with one baby's toe becoming necrotic in China several years ago after a hair got caught wrapped around it. However, it is not only children at risk — with a 57-year old man from Geelong nearly losing his penis after one of his pubic hairs got caught wrapped around it.
'Cautionary tale' against co-sleeping, Kidsafe says
While confirming incidents like these are indeed very "rare", Kidsafe explained this is why parents are often warned against co-sleeping. Babies are unable to alert parents they are in danger unlike toddlers, but it is still considered a risk regardless of the child's age.
"Experts caution against co-sleeping as, luckily, a one-year-old will make a noise, but smaller children won't," Christine Erskine from Kidsafe told Yahoo News Australia. "Co-rooming is recommended instead."
"It's certainly one of those cautionary tales which is so rare but can happen," she said.
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