Parenting is difficult at the best of times. Especially in the early days before children learn to speak, and you have to rely solely on non-verbal communication. Which can be tough!
But a mom’s intuition doesn’t lie.
Kristen Barton is a new mom to a beautiful 8-month-old baby girl. She answered a question posted on Ask Reddit with a harrowing story which resulted in her saving her baby’s life.
She noticed a sudden change in her daughter’s behavior, and felt she was acting out of character. Her usually mild-tempered little girl became clingy and easily upset out of the blue.
So she took the baby’s temperature, thinking she might be feeling sick, but it was only slightly higher than normal, so it didn’t seem too serious.
A few days later her daughter still had a fever, so Kristen took her to the emergency room.
“The fever wouldn’t go away and I just had a really bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.”
But the doctor didn’t take the issue seriously.
“I brought her home, but just couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible was going to happen.”
So again, Kristen and her baby were sent away from the emergency room with some medicine and nothing more.
She was given another opinion and the doctor insisted again that it was just the flu. But her intuition was burning and red flags were going off everywhere.
“I KNEW something was wrong. I knew it deep down in the pit of my stomach. So I brought her to the emergency room for a fourth time (in the span of one day).”
The doctors were becoming impatient. They thought she was being a helicopter mom and over protective. They saw her repetitive visits as taking up unnecessary spots from other people.
The doctors felt like they’d already diagnosed her baby and needed to move on to help other patients.
In an attempt to prove her wrong (and presumably, get rid of her) they ran every test they could think of. They thought if they could rule everything out, she’d have no choice accept it and stop showing up in the emergency room.
But, little did the doctors know, the tests would turn up some shocking results.
“My daughter was severely dehydrated, had RSV, a UTI, a yeast infection, and very severe kidney infection.”
For an 8-month-old child, these conditions were life-threatening.
Kristen’s daughter was immediately admitted to the hospital and stayed there for almost a full week.
She was hooked up to an IV drip and medication to help treat her various conditions.
“Her doctor told me if I hadn’t brought her back to the emergency room that last time, she would have died that night from kidney failure. I don’t blindly trust doctors anymore.”
We’re just happy Kristen was bold enough to push back and get the required tests to help save her baby!
Doctors go through years of education, training and residency programs to become qualified for their important roles. Most of the time, they’re able to diagnose a problem and give patients get the help they need.
But sometimes, you just have to listen to your gut.
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