When a newborn baby started refusing to feed, a mom’s gut instinct was that something was very wrong.
However, it was only when she got to hospital that the gravity of the situation emerged.
Aoife Randall from Tipperary in Ireland is a proud mom of five children. In 2022, her son Levi Thomas was born.
Levi has an intellectual disability and, now 3, is tube fed. Every day with Levi is precious to Randall because she knows how close she came to losing him as a baby.
It began with what seemed like, at first, your usual restless night for mother and child but quickly escalated into something more serious.
“He refused to feed during the night and when he woke in the morning he seemed out of touch with reality, almost like his eyes were rolling and he wasn’t present,” Randall told Newsweek. “He was also whimpering in pain.”
What made the situation frightening to Randall was the speed with which Levi’s condition changed. “There were no symptoms before this, only a slight temperature during the night,” she said.
In that situation, some new parents might have chosen to wait and see how things progressed, but Randall’s motherly instincts told her action was required.
“My gut was telling me something was very wrong,” she said. “He was taken to hospital immediately when he refused his morning feed.”
That was when she got the shock diagnosis. “They tested his cerebrospinal fluid via lumbar puncture,” she said. “He had parechovirus found in his central nervous system.”
Human parechovirus can lead to life-threatening sepsis in babies, particularly newborns. Charity Sepsis Alliance warns that any child under the age of 2 months displaying symptoms like difficulty breathing, difficulty rousing, difficulty feeding, a high fever or symptoms of meningitis, should seek medical assistance immediately.
“I was told he wouldn’t have survived the day had I waited,” Randall said.
Randall shared Levi’s story in a TikTok posted under the handle @aoiferandall. It’s been watched 1.1 million times. She said she posted it to “raise awareness for other new mothers.”
“It’s very important to listen to your child’s lead. It was the only thing that saved my son,” she said.
The post highlighted that Levi was no isolated case either, with many fellow mothers taking to the comments section to share their own experiences with sepsis.
Also, don’t hesitate to get a professional opinion, even if it means heading straight to hospital. “Always check if you feel something isn’t right,” Randall said.
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