What bothered me most of all going into parenthood was that I knew there were things I would have to learn on the spot. I knew that no matter how many parenting books I was consuming during pregnancy, I would learn things the hard way.
One night my husband was holding our son in his lap after feeding him. He noticed one of our son’s toes was irritated. When he looked closer he saw a string wrapped around it, causing swelling. He brought him to me and the panic set in. There was very apparent swelling, but his toe was a slight pink, not purple.
We quickly went to work trying to remove it. After a few attempts of trying to unwrap the string by hand and failing, we got a pair of tweezers. Trying to get the tweezers underneath the front was difficult because of the swelling so we had to go at it from the side. We looped the tweezer under the string following the crease and cut it with a small pair of scissors from his baby grooming kit.
The hardest part of this was hearing my son’s discomfort, his cries. He was cuddled immediately after and was absolutely fine. We soaked his toes in a basin of warm water and soap then applied antibiotic ointment once he was dried off.
Thankfully my husband had read an article about this happening to other babies – strings from their socks or simply hair wrapping around their toes and cutting off circulation. It never occurred to me that it could happen. I was never advised or made aware of the possibility that this could happen.
We are in colder weather so we keep socks on him all day, but take them off during changings to avoid any mess. We had just changed him before he ate and never put them back on. We often look at his feet and hands, because we adore them, but we now do it on a more frequent basis to ensure his safety.
To avoid this happening, keep an eye on those 10 fingers and 10 toes! Wash all their socks inside out and keep the baby’s laundry separate from mom and dad’s. It’s also safe to say that checking inside any footed onesies is advised. If string or hair gets caught in the foot it can work its way around your baby’s toes with the smallest amount of kicking and friction.
