"Check your baby's toes": A midwife's urgent warning for all parents to look out for.

An Aussie midwife has issued a warning all parents with newborns and infants should be aware of.

Midwife Cath Curtin posted the photo of what looks to be a baby’s inflamed and swollen toe on Instagram to bring parents’ attention to a painful and potentially dangerous injury that, surprisingly, happens more often than you might think.

So we have a red sore toe…guess what causes it? Usually a piece of the mothers hair! A hair can be in the baby’s onesie and wrap itself around the babies toe – causing extreme pain and if not checked the toe may need to be amputated. It happened to my friend @clairest55 son Tom when he was a baby. A long blonde hair wrapped around his toe. Lucky it was found and the hair removed in time. Always check your baby’s toes, wash with a baby wipe when changing the nappy. I always look at the toes when checking a baby, running my fingers through them to ensure no stray hair has found its way there ????. It causes so much pain and as you can imagine the baby cries, a lot. Have you heard of this? Anyone experienced this with their child? ♥️

A post shared by Midwife Cath (@midwifecath) on Feb 2, 2018 at 12:17am PST

“So we have a red sore toe…guess what causes it?” the newborn and toddler expert asked her 19,000 followers about the very sore looking toe.

“Usually a piece of the mothers hair! A hair can be in the baby’s onesie and wrap itself around the babies toe – causing extreme pain and if not checked the toe may need to be amputated.

“It happened to my friend @clairest55 son Tom when he was a baby. A long blonde hair wrapped around his toe. Lucky it was found and the hair removed in time.”

While it might seem like the kind of injury that only happens as a fluke, the post’s comments say otherwise. Many parents shared their stories of experiencing similar situations with their own babies.

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“It never happened with my first two babies, but with my third she had a hair tightly wrapped around her finger. My 10 year old noticed it and from that point my eldest daughters were constantly checking the baby for hair wrapped around her fingers,” one wrote.

“This happened to my first born when he was 10 weeks old. I was out getting a coffee and looked down to notice his little toe was a purple/blue tone. I quickly realised it was a hair and we rushed straight to the GP and they sent me to the hospital. They took what seemed like forever to remove it and said if I had left it another few hours it may have needed to be amputated,” commented another.

One mum shared how this happened to her daughter before she could talk. “She was crying for hours! I tried everything! Then I remembered my mom saying that this happened to me, so I checked her sock.. and sure enough her toe was caught in a loose string from the sock. Her toe was red and swollen,” she wrote.

Another added: “I had a child at my work place have one and the other educators had never seen or heard of it. His was really bad and need medical attention.”

Midwife Cath’s advice for parents of babies is to be vigilant about checking their fingers and toes, especially when they’re crying and you are struggling to figure out why.

“Always check your baby’s toes, wash with a baby wipe when changing the nappy. I always look at the toes when checking a baby, running my fingers through them to ensure no stray hair has found its way there,” she warned.

“It causes so much pain and as you can imagine the baby cries, a lot.”

Has this ever happened to your child? How did you figure it out?