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Hair scare: combatting the hair tourniquet monster

Parenthood is challenging, unpredictable and at times unnerving. Poco was barely 4 months on a Saturday morning in the month of June. His dad decided to give him a head to toe massage before a bath. That's when he noticed a swelling on a tiny toe. Initially it looked like an insect bite but poco didn't seem like he was in pain. Our friends next doors suggested we call a medical facility. My husband spoke to a nurse who recommended an ointment and asked us to wait it out till Monday.
We took him to the emergency department of a hospital for check up, just in case.... 'Just in case' turned out to be a big deal. A doctor inspected his toe and told us that something had cut through his skin! We were neither aware nor ready for this. They pricked and poked his toe with a forcep even as I held on to my wailing baby. Nothing in sight. They called for a podiatrist (foot specialist). By then we prepared ourselves for a surgery because that seemed like the only option to get the thing out. When the podiatrist arrived it had been 6 hrs since we visited the hospital. She examined an exhausted poco and confirmed the need for a minor surgery.
She told us that in most cases a fine hair or a thread forms a ring around a toe or a finger and cuts through the delicate skin into the flesh. What's alarming is that if the hair cuts deeper right up to the bone it stops blood circulation and in such cases toe amputation is the only way out. This is known as hair tourniquet. Fortunately in pocos case it wasn't that severe because we had detected the swelling at an early stage. 
I was asked not to feed poco for 6 hrs before the surgery and it was painful to look at the hungry child. Our friends stayed with us through the day. Finally at around 9 PM a nurse took him away from me. Those 20 minutes seemed like eternity. The doctor successfully removed the hair and by 9.30 we were with him.
Hair tourniquet is not uncommon in infants and I learnt it the hard way. Awareness is the only way we can fight the menace.

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