Carbon Monoxide Poisoning;The GP Told Me It Wasnt – A Mum Shares Her Frightening Story
At 10 weeks my baby girl had become very poorly, constantly being violently sick and always sleeping (nothing unusual for a young baby), if she wasn’t sleeping she was screaming, losing weight rather quickly. Back and forth to the doctors and my Health Visitor and I were reassured my baby just had reflux, I was given 2 prescribed medicines that didn’t seem to help.
The only thing that would stop her being sick is when she was out the house, she wouldn’t be as poorly.
At 13 weeks on the 7th January our baby was in her bouncer in the front room (we had a very small front room and that was the warmest room in the house). I took her out to change her clothes as yet again she’d been sick after I had breast fed her, something caught my eye on the gas fireplace which alarmed me straight away, it was hissing and just looked different.
I thought back and clicked on that I had a sore throat for a while. My little boy was at nursery most of the time or playing in the other room, and my partner works nights so hardly spent time in the front room.
I rushed upstairs and turned all the gas off.
I woke my partner up to check it out, within hours British Gas were out and condemned our boiler. Taking advice from my Health Visitor I took my kids to the GP to get them checked out.
The GP told me it couldn’t possibly be Carbon Monoxide Poisoning because their skin color would of been purple!
Not having any of it I took them to A&E for a second opinion, my daughter was put straight on a nebular as her STATS were low. They had a blood test which my daughters come back with unsatisfactory results and my sons were fine.
My little girl was kept in for 11 days and sure enough her sickness and screaming stopped within 24 hours of being out the house.
I encourage you ALL to go and get yourselves a carbon monoxide detector(one that sets off an alarm, not paper ones) IT SAVES LIVES. CARBON MONOXIDE IS A SILENT LEAK, NO NOISE,COLOUR, SMELL!
I don’t mean to scare anyone with this post, just glad I didn’t listen to the GP.
COMMENTS ( 1 )
posted on 17 December at 18:20
This is terrible but thank God this mother realised herself what it was. Carbon monoxide (CO) is a hidden danger and the main reason for this is the lack of publicity about it. Yet less than 2% of CO can kill in between one and three minutes. Babies and small children are more vulnerable because they are small. Do please contact us as we would like to know more and perhaps invite you to our event at the House of Lords. We have been pressing for prime time TV warnings about CO since 1995. Medics almost never diagnose CO and it is difficult to diagnose. However, much better to avoid it in the first place. For prevention, please see CO-Gas Safety's website.