If Your Baby Won't Stop Crying, Pediatrics Look For This

We're sure that every parent wishes that their crying baby could just tell them what's wrong. Unfortunately sometimes it's down to detective skills to figure it out. 

Two weeks ago, Scott and Jessica Warner’s baby daughter, Molly, started screaming at lunch. She got so worked up that she began to overheat, which prompted Jess to take off her socks off...and that’s where they discovered the source of Molly’s despair. Scott uploaded a picture of his daughter’s toe, which had been injured by the most seemingly innocent of things: a strand of hair.

“This is called a hair tourniquet, which is literally a strand of hair that, while inside a sock, unexplainably wraps around a toe so tight that it can cut through the skin and potentially cut off blood circulation,” Scott wrote in the post.

“The hair tourniquet syndrome wasn’t anything I ever heard about,” Scott told Today. “When we found it was pretty stressful because any time your kid is hurt it’s stressful; you feel helpless. I’m lucky enough to have a wife who is an awesome nurse who was able to remove the hair in minutes.”

According to parenting and youth development expert Dr. Debi Gilboa, this is something many in pediatrics look for if a child won’t stop crying.

“If you feel like your child is behaving in a way that’s unusual, pay attention to it. You’re usually right,” Gilboa told Today. “A hair tourniquet is a great thing to check for and it’s not hard to spot. There’s not really any way to prevent it, but they’re not that hard to remove. Use something like a bobby pin, so it’s thin and not sharp, slide it between the hair and the skin and it pops right off. If you feel uncomfortable, call your doctor.”