Mum's warning after newborn’s horror ordeal on day out at fair
"Hearing my baby scream through an emergency department in pain was excruciating." Warning: Distressing images
Warning: Contains images that some may find distressing
Courtney Goddard, 30, checked her phone for the weather forecast before she left the house.
For Thornlie, Western Australia, it was expected to be 21 degrees, overcast with random showers here and there.
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"She was completely her usual self"
It wasn’t until her newborn daughter, Lucy, was being admitted into the emergency department that she wished she’d checked for one more thing.
“It was a cloudy and rainy day when she got burnt, but what I didn’t know was that the UV level was nine,” Ms Goddard told news.com.au.
“Hearing my baby scream through an emergency department in pain was excruciating… seeing literal chunks of her skin missing is an image I will never get out of my head.”
If the rating is over 3, it is deemed unsafe for human skin to be exposed without protection, Cancer Council states.
The mother-of-two owns her own birth doula business, but being on maternity leave, she took the opportunity to plan a day out to a local fair. They only attended for a few hours to check out the animals.
Lucy was in a carrier on her mother’s chest, her big brother Mason in the pram. Much of their time was spent in the shade and under cover, she said.
Nothing appeared out of the ordinary.
“She was completely her usual self throughout the day. Not visibly overheated, not upset, just her usual happy self,” the mother recalled.
It wasn’t until later that night that Ms Goddard and her husband began to notice something was wrong.
“At about 7pm her face started to look a bit pink, and by 9pm the right side of her face and ear, which were exposed in the carrier while she slept with her head turned on my chest, had developed blisters and she was in obvious pain,” the mum said.
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The worried parents took her straight to the emergency room, where they waited until 2am for Lucy to be seen.
By this point, the bub’s blisters were much worse and had begun “bursting and leaving pus all over her face and ear,” the mum explained.
When they were finally moved to a bed, Lucy was diagnosed with second-degree reflective UV radiation sunburn.
The parents were instructed to leave the room while the nurses began to debride the baby’s face and remove blistered skin, because the process would be too distressing to watch.
“Although we couldn’t see her, we could hear her. Her screams echoed through the halls,” she shared.
“When we were finally allowed back in, I saw her face and broke down.”
They were given an ointment to keep applying and a referral to a burn clinic.
The experts taught the parents how to care for the burn more effectively, control Lucy’s pain and reduce infection risk.
"I am paranoid to be outside with her"
Despite the access to better resources, it didn’t make it any less confronting.
“I had to clean the wounds every four hours, which was visibly painful for her, but I knew it had to be done correctly to prevent scarring,” she shared.
The mum also needed to try and explain the situation to Mason and ensure he didn’t touch her.
The whole ordeal has left the mother fearful.
“I am paranoid to be outside with her. I worry if we are in the car park, going from the car to the shops, I worry if we are sat outside under the patio, I am so scared that it could happen again and have absolutely no way of stopping it unless we live inside permanently, which I know isn’t healthy either and my son loves to be outside,” she admitted.
She believes there’s a gap for many parents in understanding sun safety for newborns.
“We didn’t take her out on a 40-degree day to the beach or anything crazy; we thought we were doing the right thing. Unfortunately, we have had to learn the hard way what devastation it can cause and how quickly it can happen,” she said.
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Sunscreen is not recommended for infants under the age of six months, Cancer Council Australia states on its website. Their skin is sensitive to the chemicals used to create the product.
Keeping children under shade, using loose and well-covered clothing and hats are also advised.
It’s been three weeks of aftercare, and Lucy is now doing better, with her skin almost looking back to normal.
Now Ms Goddard is ensuring that Lucy’s pain wasn’t in vain. She’s spreading awareness so that other parents don’t have to listen to the screams she’ll never unhear.
“Be aware of the dangers, learn from us,” she stresses.
“You have to check the levels yourself for your area. The news report won’t tell you what the UV levels are, and your phone won’t either unless you actually look for it.”
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Originally published as Mum's warning after newborn’s horror ordeal on day out at fair
